Book Review
In New Startup Mindset, Sandra Shpilberg will show you a new way to succeed as an entrepreneur! This provocative startup tale of success exposes Silicon Valley’s startup myths and sets forth a new approach for aspiring and current founders to build companies that make an impact.
In New Startup Mindset, Sandra Shpilberg, founder and CEO of Seeker Health, introduces a new mindset for starting and building a successful company. Shpilberg shows that Silicon Valley’s startup formula—a few young male cofounders attempting to build a unicorn funded by venture capital—is a broken system that puts excessive emphasis on hype and improbable outsized outcomes, disregards real results such as revenue and profit, and promotes limiting beliefs for the next generation of entrepreneurs.
In 2015, Shpilberg founded Seeker Health, a digital patient-finding platform. The company grew rapidly to serve over sixty biotechnology companies, connect millions of patients with serious diseases to clinical trials, and achieve great financial success. From the start, Shpilberg did almost everything differently than the blazed path: she chose to be a solo founder, didn’t pursue an incubator, didn’t accept outside funding, led development of software despite not being a programmer, and charged customers from month one. Instead of creating hype about fundraising based on fictitious valuations, Shpilberg focused on customer needs, yielding a startup with revenue, profit, and impact; and in September 2018, a large life science services company acquired her startup while she was still the sole owner.
In New Startup Mindset, Shpilberg shares her success story of starting, building, and exiting her startup and provides readers with sage insights and practical tools to follow this approach. This book is simultaneously a needed dose of reality for Silicon Valley and a large serving of inspiration for those who want to create something from nothing. It is a must-read for aspiring startup founders and current entrepreneurs, especially those who may think they don’t fit the mold of a Silicon Valley founder and are open to a new way of making a definitive and profound impact with the companies they create.
Author quotes
During this entrepreneurial pursuit, I did almost everything differently than the traditional path.
Go ahead and have ambitious goals, but know that many companies make a great impact without becoming unicorns.
Forget waiting for a co-founder and trying co-founder dating. You are all of the founding power you will ever need.
Better work means bigger success, and better work is not measured in hours. Better work is measured in quality and effectiveness.
About the author
Sandra Shpilberg is the Founder & CEO of Seeker Health and the author of the bestselling book New Startup Mindset: 10 Mindset Shifts to Build the Company of Your Dreams. Seeker Health is a digital patient finding platform to accelerate the development of treatments for patients who really need them. Since starting the company in 2015, Shpilberg developed a breakthrough software product, filed a US patent, and built a team which serves 60+ biopharmaceutical companies. In the next 3 years, the revenue of Seeker Health doubled each year and profit tripled. In September 2018, Eversana, the leading independent provider of global services to the life science industry, acquired Seeker Health. Prior to this successful entrepreneurial pursuit, Shpilberg held executive roles at biopharmaceutical companies. Ms. Shpilberg’s innovative spirit is captured in the book A Rare Breed, and Medical Marketing & Media named her a Top 40 Healthcare Transformer. She’s originally from Uruguay, speaks fluent Spanish, and brings a global approach to her work and impact. She holds an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and has completed the UCLA Anderson School of Management Corporate Governance certification.
Why LoA loves it….
Listening to Sandra Shpilberg speaking about how she became an entrepreneur and built a super successful business, winning plaudits and accolades along the way, is to hear what having tenacity and the right mindset really means. In her fascinating new books, Sandra shares her belief in the fact that the mindset with which you approach the process of starting and building a company is fundamental to its success. She has written this insightful and practical book as a roadmap to putting the right mindset in place needed to achieve a successful business. Definitely a must-read for any entrepreneur keen to realize their business building dreams and aspirations. — Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo of Lionesses of Africa