Create and Orchestrate by Marcus Whitney
Orchestrate and Create is decently well-written but fails to deliver on its own promises. It doesn’t exactly ramble, as it’s marketed as a half memoir, half instruction manual, but it would be a painful stretch to say the author maintains a clear narrative. If you like Marcus Whitney and want to know more about him, this is an excellent read. Similarly, if you have a business already up and running and want to know more about managing finances and how venture capital works, this book is spectacular. For the clearly marked target audience of people who are only just starting to consider becoming entrepreneurs, however, it adds more intimidation than it alleviates. All actionable information can be found on pages 39, 41-43, 45, 46, 47-48, 59-60, 76, 80-81, 83, 97-98, 99 101, 103-104, 105, 111-112, 123-124, 133, 218-222, 248, and 251.
While the goal of Orchestrate and Create is to encourage people to become entrepreneurs, Whitney fails to take fears or worry into account past admitting that, yes, it is scary, and to move forward regardless. He advises 60-80 hour work weeks and pushing forward no matter what. His most informational passages are academic overviews of business models, finances, and venture capital, which read very similarly to textbooks. It’s a lot of general information given very quickly, and next-to-none of it is actionable. Useful, yes, but not actionable. There are many points throughout the book where Whitney states that other books can explain a concept better than him and thus doesn’t even try.
Much of the information given is only applicable to people with businesses already set up, not those who are timidly thinking about attempting entrepreneurship. He also insists upon hiring lawyers and CPAs right off the bat, seeming to forget that half his draw is his origin as a penniless waiter, and thus half his target audience is likely trying to get off the ground with no money in their pockets. His only acknowledgement of those trying to start without money is to suggest a “side hustle,” which is to start working a full-time entrepreneurship job on top of a wholehearted commitment to a regular, paying day job. He admits both that he did this and that his marriage fell apart because of it, but the side hustle still receives his highest recommendation for a penniless start. In terms of Whitney’s self-proclaimed goal of making entrepreneurship a more accessible career option, Orchestrate and Create misses the mark.
Page 39 recommends shifting mindsets from the belief that you want to be ‘x’ (e.g., a computer programmer) to the belief that you are already ‘x’ in order to keep up spirits. Pages 41-43 say to recognize the risks associated with “reinventing yourself” into an entrepreneur. These risks include losing relationships with others, losing who you are and/or who you believe yourself to be, and losing your financial stability. On page 45, Whitney circles back around to the idea of shifting mindsets, stating that the reward of believing yourself to already be what you want to be is the moment when the “dynamic of our outside world resonates with our internal beliefs.” He also recommends keeping those beliefs to yourself until they become undeniable to the rest of the world, thus avoiding outside doubt. With this, Whitney says not to “self-qualify,” as words like “aspiring,” “entry-level,” and “one day” tend to negate to uplifting effect of shifting your mindset (46).
The ”Four Burners Theory” is explained on pages 47-48. This theory separates life into four categories: health, work, family, and friends. Each category takes energy, and as you pursue entrepreneurship, it’s important to set the expectation for sacrifice. Pouring more energy into one category takes energy from the others, and ripple effects are bound to be had. Pages 59-60 recommend taking three steps prior to starting your entrepreneurial business. The first step is to spend less (i.e., work on getting your expenses as low as they can go in order to extend the time you’ll have on a limited income). The second is to have a cushion (i.e., have a minimum of four months’ worth of expenses saved back before making the leap). The third is to know what’s coming up (i.e., take financial obligations, such as graduated payments for your mortgage, for the next 12-24 months into account).
Whitney harps on protecting your time, stating that “If you aren’t willing to say no to requests for your time, you are saying to yourself that the needs of others supersede your own” (76). On pages 80-81, Whitney recommends assessing prospective projects through the “iron triangle,” which involves defining the time, scope, and resources of any particular idea. If the prospective project can’t be negotiated to fit all three parameters, it won’t work. For higher productivity, he recommends batching your schedule, which involves doing all of one task before moving onto the next (e.g., finish emailing before making calls). For multiplied productivity, he recommends committing time and energy to learning and leveraging new technologies (83).
Pages 97-98 say to hire a CPA, as filing taxes are a headache and there are correct and incorrect ways to build a chart of accounts. (I find it pertinent to note, here, that CPAs are incredibly expensive and that, unless you have either a very complicated or multi-million dollar business, most run-of-the-mill accountants can do this job for a much lower price.) On page 99, Whitney states that it’s important to be able to handle your own day-to-day finances, which includes cash flow, payroll, accounts payable, and income statement. On the financial front, he also states that if money is tight, it’s wise to choose which bills get paid and which you’ll allow to go into collections (101).
When making a business model, Whitney says to be wary of irrational optimism and the desire to make the business work on paper, as this will often cause you to be overconfident about the amount of revenue you’ll generate, understate expenses, and miss critical expenses necessary to operate the business (103-104). As you enter the fiscal year, report actuals against what’s been budgeted for to track how you’re performing against how you thought it would go (105).
Whitney says you “need a contract for everything you do,” and that the best way to go about that is to “document everything your business will do that touches other people—employees, contractors, vendors, customers, potential customers, investors, partners. All these parties will need a contract from you” (111). He also states that attorneys should have boiler plate versions of most contracts and not to pay for contracts to be created from scratch (111-112). Pages 123-124 state that the best ways to grow your company are to reinvest your profits into the business and anticipate where the market will be so you can take advantage of innovation. He advises building the cost of customer service into the price of the product (133).
Pages 218-222 state that it’s best to break into a hard market (i.e., a market with high demand and low supply), and urge those starting a business to keep the market in mind as, “[Y]our business is not about how great your idea is in isolation. It’s about how well it is received and adopted in the market.” Whitney says to expect fatigue and to build recovery and healing cycles into your plans (248). And, finally, on page 251, he reminds readers not to set the vision as a single success, as there will always be another goal higher and better than the one currently being pursued.
And now, as far as actionable information goes, you’ve read Create and Orchestrate. If you liked this and found it useful, please share it on your socials and with your friends. You can sign up for my newsletter by scrolling down. If you have any books you’d like to see on Too Busy for Books, you can contact me here. I’d love to hear your recommendations!
Thanks for reading,
--Jack