The Personal MBA

✍ Scribed by Kaufman, Josh

• Publisher: Portfolio/Penguin
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 418
• Category: Library

✦ Table of Contents

Cover Page
Praise
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Contents
Chapter One: Why Read this Book?
You Don’t Need to Know It All
No Experience Necessary
Questions, Not Answers
Mental Models, Not Methods
My “Personal” MBA
A Self-Directed Crash Course in Business
The Wheat and the Chaff
The Personal MBA Goes Global
Munger’s Mental Models
Connecting the Dots
For the Skeptics
Should You Go to Business School?
Three Big Problems with Business Schools
Delusions of Grandeur
Your Money AND Your Life
Breaking Out the Benjamins
What an MBA Will Actually Get You
Where Business Schools Came From
In Search of Distribution
Playing with Fire
No Reason to Change
The Single Benefit of Business Schools
I Owe, I Owe—It’s Off to Work I Go
A Better Way
What You’ll Learn in This Book
How to Use This Book
Chapter Two: Value Creation
The Five Parts of Every Business
Economically Valuable Skills
The Iron Law of the Market
Core Human Drives
Ten Ways to Evaluate a Market
The Hidden Benefits of Competition
The Mercenary Rule
The Crusader Rule
Twelve Standard Forms of Value
Form of Value #1: Product
Form of Value #2: Service
Form of Value #3: Shared Resource
Form of Value #4: Subscription
Form of Value #5: Resale
Form of Value #6: Lease
Form of Value #7: Agency
Form of Value #8: Audience Aggregation
Form of Value #9: Loan
Form of Value #10: Option
Form of Value #11: Insurance
Form of Value #12: Capital
Perceived Value
Modularity
Bundling and Unbundling
Prototype
The Iteration Cycle
Iteration Velocity
Feedback
Alternatives
Trade-offs
Economic Values
Relative Importance Testing
Critically Important Assumptions (CIAs)
Shadow Testing
Minimum Economically Viable Offer (MEVO)
Incremental Augmentation
Field Testing
Chapter Three: Marketing
Attention
Receptivity
Remarkability
Probable Purchaser
End Result
Qualification
Point of Market Entry
Addressability
Desire
Visualization
Framing
Free
Permission
Hook
Call-to-Action (CTA)
Narrative
Controversy
Reputation
Chapter Four: Sales
Transaction
Trust
Common Ground
Pricing Uncertainty Principle
Four Pricing Methods
Value-Based Selling
Education-Based Selling
Next Best Alternative
Three Universal Currencies
Three Dimensions of Negotiation
Buffer
Reciprocation
Damaging Admission
Barriers to Purchase
Risk Reversal
Reactivation
Chapter Five: Value Delivery
Value Stream
Distribution Channel
The Expectation Effect
Predictability
Throughput
Duplication
Multiplication
Scale
Accumulation
Amplification
Barrier to Competition
Force Multiplier
Systemization
Chapter Six: Finance
Profit Margin
Value Capture
Sufficiency
Four Methods to Increase Revenue
Pricing Power
Lifetime Value
Allowable Acquisition Cost (AAC)
Overhead
Costs: Fixed and Variable
Incremental Degradation
Breakeven
Amortization
Purchasing Power
Cash Flow Cycle
Opportunity Cost
Time Value of Money
Compounding
Leverage
Hierarchy of Funding
Bootstrapping
Return on Investment (ROI)
Sunk Cost
Chapter Seven: The Human Mind
Caveman Syndrome
The Gas Tank
The Onion Brain
Perceptual Control
Reference Level
Conservation of Energy
Guiding Structure
Reorganization
Conflict
Pattern Matching
Mental Simulation
Interpretation and Reinterpretation
Motivation
Inhibition
Willpower Depletion
Loss Aversion
Threat Lockdown
Cognitive Scope Limitation
Association
Absence Blindness
Contrast
Scarcity
Novelty
Chapter Eight: Working with Yourself
Monoidealism
Cognitive Switching Penalty
Four Methods of Completion
Most Important Tasks (MITs)
Goals
States of Being
Habits
Priming
Decision
Five-Fold Why
Five-Fold How
Next Action
Externalization
Self-Elicitation
Counterfactual Simulation
Parkinson’s Law
Doomsday Scenario
Excessive Self-Regard Tendency
Confirmation Bias
Hindsight Bias
Performance Load
Energy Cycles
Stress and Recovery
Testing
Mystique
Locus of Control
Attachment
Personal Research and Development (R&D)
The Growth Mind-set
Chapter Nine: Working with Others
Power
Comparative Advantage
Communication Overhead
Importance
Safety
Golden Trifecta
Reason Why
Commander’s Intent
Bystander Apathy
Planning Fallacy
Referrals
Clanning
Convergence and Divergence
Social Signals
Social Proof
Authority
Commitment and Consistency
Incentive-Caused Bias
Modal Bias
Pygmalion Effect
Attribution Error
Option Orientation
Management
Chapter Ten: Understanding Systems
Gall’s Law
Flow
Stock
Slack
Constraint
Feedback Loop
Autocatalysis
Environment
Selection Test
Uncertainty
Change
Interdependence
Counterparty Risk
Second-Order Effects
Normal Accidents
Chapter Eleven: Analyzing Systems
Deconstruction
Measurement
Key Performance Indicator
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Analytical Honesty
Context
Sampling
Confidence Interval
Ratio
Mean, Median, Mode, and Midrange
Correlation and Causation
Norms
Proxy
Segmentation
Humanization
Chapter Twelve: Improving Systems
Optimization
Refactoring
The Critical Few
Diminishing Returns
Friction
Automation
The Paradox of Automation
The Irony of Automation
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
Checklist
Cessation
Resilience
Fail-safe
Stress Testing
Scenario Planning
The Middle Path
The Experimental Mind-set
Not “The End”
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: How to Continue Your Business Studies
Appendix B: Forty-nine Questions to Improve Your Results
Notes
Index