Reading List: Get Big Fast and Do More Good

In this lively and accessible account, Ido Leffler and Lance Kalish, co-founders of global beauty brand Yes To, tell the story of how the entrepreneurially minded pair met in Australia, formed a beautiful partnership, started a company, nearly tanked several times and now sit at the helm of a San Francisco-based beauty empire. This he-said/he-said tale reveals how they managed their long-distance partnership (they still live on opposite sides of the world) and contrasting personalities (Kalish is “the worrying Eeyore” to Leffler’s “ever-cheerful Piglet”) and transformed a quirky Israeli-made beauty product sold locally into a global, multimillion-dollar natural brand with 80 products and more than 28,000 outlets, including Walgreens and Target.

Get Big Fast and Do More Good isn’t just a self-congratulatory, heady road trip. Entrepreneurship is risky business, a fact the authors illustrate by describing their mistakes, close calls, years of hustling and millions of miles traveled in pursuit of the next sale. They also give budding entrepreneurs a boatload of helpful counsel for different stages of success, including when to invest in a media campaign and how to cut travel costs, build up your image when you can’t afford a classy hotel (this includes making friends with the concierge), snag an elusive contact on the phone, measure the merits of trade shows, handle a recall crisis, do good by doing well, and much more. Equal parts reality check and inspiration, this book is an investment that every would-be entrepreneur should make.

by Ido Leffler and Lance Kalish

November
Amazon Publishing/New Harvest; $25