Reviews for Blueprint to a Billion

Here are some of the reader reviews found at Amazon.com

Unbelievably good...
January 29, 2006 : Grant Haven
This book is amazing. So many books are opinionated and about what the author has done to achieve success. This blueprint is about what has worked time and time again for 300+ successful companies in the states in order to scale to a billion dollars. I find the techniques are helping me incredibly in my business structure and planning and recommend this to anyone in any line of business.

Living this research...
January 25, 2006 : Mike Pascoe
My years in telecoms have included experiencing life with one of Dave's study companies. We hit the $billion mark in the 6 to 7 year timeframe and what a ride it was. Dave's book captured the reasons for that success exceptionally well. Far better than any 'how to' management book if you are trying to drive your company to similar exponential growth.

I find myself driving a similar opportunity today and the insight's from Blueprint to a Billion are being put to great use!
If you are a VC, read this and then look at your portfolio companies in a new light. You might also want to get those independent board members on the team sooner!

A superb book. Move over Good to Great.
January 10, 2006 : Stradivari and Amati Fan
I wish I had the knowledge imparted through this book when we started Lycos in 1995. Things might be very different today. Blueprint to a Billion is filled with millions (no...billions) of dollars worth of information. Thomson has created a comprehensive and practical book that truly provides a blueprint for how to make your company a success.
Unlike the hundreds of "how to" and "get rich quick" books on the market, I found Blueprint to a Billion to back up its statements with hard facts and also to structure itself in such a manner that I would not hesitate to have every employee in one of my companies read it.

I highly recommend Blueprint to a Billion. To me, it is the "Good to Great" of 2006 and beyond.

Excellent quantitative analysis backing up insightful qualitative observatoins
January 10, 2006 : Glenn Falcao
This is one of the first business books that I have read that provides the hard quantitative data to validate the usual qualitative insights. This makes the book a more credible and valuable management tool in structuring and tracking your business based on measurable criteria. I appreciated the real life success stories and observations that validated the research and made the book more than a just theoretical business textbook. This book goes a long way to provide business leaders the analytical tools they need to grow their business and make growth more of a science than an art. I look forward to the continued refinement of this research and its effect on the next generation of Blueprint companies.

Blueprint to a Billion - A Masterpiece!
January 3, 2006 : Jean B. Sawadogo
I have just finished this book. Blueprint to a Billion is a masterpiece by David G. Thomson. Take it from an avid reader of business, management and leadership books and a leading expert in "results-based management". Blueprint to a Billion is a welcome novelty and I believe it will contribute to make it easier to generate more "Blueprint Companies", faster than ever, as entrepreneurs and business leaders alike apply the material it contains. With this book, David Thomson has earned a place of choice alongside my personally handpicked favorites such as Peter Drucker and Jack Welch.

Blueprint to a Billion is a comprehensive, practical, credible and interesting book to read and learn from. It covers all aspects of a successful business in any sector: markets, financials, processes, management, leadership, values, culture, etc. It analyzes and communicates the quantitative "roadmap", the qualitative "what and how to" as well as the dynamics of growing a business, exponentially, to a billion dollars revenue in four, six or twelve years. Blueprint to a Billion uses actual data and features true stories of outstanding companies and their leaders. As you read the excepts of interviews, in context, it feels like you are seeing and hearing the business executives as they speak, and you get a feel of what they are conveying with authority and humanity. Blueprint to a Billion even defies conventional wisdom as it picks on "unexpected findings" in special sections of the chapter summaries. For instance, it demonstrates that even without formal education or actual experience running a corporation, one can start and grow a business to a billion in annual revenue if one applies the "7 Essentials" uncovered by the study and the analysis of 387 actual "Blueprint Companies". The rest is yours to discover.

To conclude, I recommend Blueprint to a Billion to business leaders and entrepreneurs alike, as well as to investors, academics and training organizations who would all benefit a great deal from it.

An actionable program and set of guideposts December 16, 2005 : Peter Diedrich
David has done a seminal piece of research that I have watched him develop for 3 years. As a venture capital investor consumer of his insights and this book, the essentials are actionable. For early stage company building and managing, the work embodies a common language for working with partners and entrepreneurs. I look forward to some tools/scorecards for measuring performance against the essentials as young companies mature on their growth paths. The so-what's of this work set the stage for building successful companies. It is a must read for all of my company CEOs.

Real Data Analysis Beef Not Management Pablum Platitudes
December 14, 2005 : Barton W. Stuck
David Thomson has spent years carrying out the data analysis, data modeling, and data interpretation that he summarizes in Blueprint to a Billion. I have had the pleasure of watching this work progress, with the ideas getting simpler and more action oriented over time, while the assertions became sharper with growing data corrobation. In my experience, many other management books provide bromides or pablum platitudes: a good read, but what do I do now that I was not doing before? This book shows the traits of companies that break out of startup phase and become the real job creators of tomorrow, breaking $1B in sales in 4-6-8 or more years, but in a highly predictable manner, with a goal oriented action oriented management team. What precisely do these companies do to achieve this growth: read the book, and then see what you might do at your firm to achieve this type of growth.

Unique Business Building Guide
December 9, 2005 : Robert E. Sadler
Thomson has done an outstanding job of giving us a guide of the essential steps to get a company from $50-$100 Million to $1B. His story telling is spot on and his research is the best I've seen in such a fast paced book.

The big 'aha' for me was the finding that a company with all 7 essentials in place as it crosses the $100M mark has an 80% chance to make it to $1B in less than 12 years. I wish I knew that 10 years ago.

I think that Thomson's work will have an impact on the way investers view young companies. It will also have an impact on how large companies choose to direct their sales investments in emerging companies.

Most of all, this book points the way for America to stay competitive by offering a blueprint to business building.

A must read!

The new Good to Great - a must read!
November 10, 2005 : Carter Williams
I have not read the book, but I have seen Dave's research on this subject. This is tremendously insightful stuff. I have been involved in corporate venturing and R&D for several years. I was a director and founder of a venture fund in a large high tech firm. David's insights are critical to helping large organizations understand what it takes to grow a business, why it may take longer to reach success, and why good stewardship is critical to year on year growth. For those corporate leaders that seek exceptional quarterly performance, Dave shows that the source of your quest is fixed in the past. Your growth in the future depends on your stewardship today.