flâneur

Founders: #188 Joe Coulombe (Founder of Trader Joes)

podscripts.co · 14,617 words · saved by 1 readers

What I learned from Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys by Joe Coulombe. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- [0:01] I wrote this book to help entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. That's why there's a lack of miracles and a surplus of marketing details including buying, advertising, distributing, and running stores; and lots of discussion of how we built a successful business on high wages. [18:09] Chapter 11 was a possibility. But I was reading The Guns of August, by Barbara W. Tuchman, with its implicit concept of multiple solutions to non-convex problems. [19:07] This is my favorite of all managerial quotes: If all the facts could be known, idiots could make the decisions. —Tex Thornton, cofounder of Litton Industries, quoted in the Los Angeles Times in the mid-1960s. [22:33] The most basic conclusion I drew from her book was that, if you adopt a reasonable strategy, as opposed to waiting for an optimum strategy, and stick with it, you'll probably succ

[00:00:00] I wrote this book to help entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. That's why there's a lack of miracles and a surplus of marketing details, including buying, advertising, distributing, and running stores. And lots of discussion on how we built a successful business on high wages. In a 1958 partnership with Rexall Drug Company, we started Pronto Markets. After growing it to six stores, I bought out Rexall shares in 1962. And then in 1967, when I had reached 18 pronto locations, I began the transition of pronto into Trader Joe's. I resigned at the end of 1988. During those 26…

related reading