The MouseDriver Chronicles - Hardcover

Lusk, John; Harrison, Kyle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0738205737 ISBN 13: 9780738205731

Publisher: Basic Books, 2002

Synopsis

When John Lusk and Kyle Harrison graduated from Wharton in 1999, nearly all of their entrepreneurially minded classmates set their sights on conquering the dot-com world. To the almost universal disdain of their friends and professors, these two turned down tempting job offers, borrowed money from friends and family, loaded up on credit card debt, and decided to start a single-product company to manufacture and market a computer mouse shaped like the head of a golf club.They watched enviously as nearly all of their friends became millionaires in the dot-com boom, but they persevered and forged their own path. To chart their progress and to keep themselves motivated against the odds, they kept a diary that recorded the realities of their everyday life as entrepreneurs. Out of their diary entries grew The MouseDriver Chronicles, an intimate, insightful, and often funny look into the minds of two entrepreneurs and how they brought a simple idea to market.From The MouseDriver Chronicles:"School was just about over, and the wondrous combination of brick-baking heat and relentless high humidity that defines summer in south Philadelphia wasn't too far off. We couldn't afford to wait around for it. We needed to blaze to San Francisco and get rolling. Fine. No problem. Except we didn't yet have an office in San Francisco. Or a place to live. Or MouseDrivers in stock. We had all our plans and ambition, but everything real about running a business was ahead of us. Immediately ahead."

About this title

Review

John Lusk and Kyle Harrison seemed slightly out of their minds when, unlike their fellow MBAs, they skipped on flashy, lucrative offers from dot-coms to become entrepreneurs. Specifically, to produce and sell a computer mouse designed to look like a golf-club head (a state-of-the-art titanium driver to be exact). "I wanted to feel the pain of starting a company," Lusk writes in this clear and insightful memoir, "to go into debt, have my ego crushed and experience first-hand the thrill of working like a dog for months without a paycheck." Since he also expected to make a million in two years, it's not surprising that all these come to pass. The duo struggle with the fundamentals of making and selling, run-ins with typhoons, shabby off-shore manufacturing, and soon dot-com envy sets in. But when the dot-coms start going belly-up, this little-retail-product-company-that-could shows that the basics of business still apply--a handy lesson for those wondering what happened after the dot-com crash, as well as any would-be entrepreneurs wanting to make a go of it. --Lesley Reed

About the Author

John Lusk spent four years as a management consultant in the Information Technology Group at Ernst & Young. In 1997, he enrolled in the Wharton School of Business, where he met Kyle Harrison, a former management consultant at Andersen Consulting. Together they founded Platinum Concepts, Inc., a company specializing in technology consumer products. Both Lusk and Harrison live in San Francisco, California.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0738205737
• ISBN 13: 9780738205731
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256