6 Awesome Lessons From Peter Thiel’s Zero to One Book.

I’ve read several of Peter Thiel’s writings and speeches, but I hadn’t yet taken the time to read his book Zero to One. It’s a quick, easy read that distills the secrets behind creating something new in your business into short and actionable chapters.

Here is zero to one book summary and six amazing lessons-

The first lesson: Competition is for Losers!

The best way to be successful is to do something different than others. Because if you do the same thing as everybody else, you will have the same result.

In other words, do it better than anyone else. Find new ways of doing things and never give up. Elon Musk has proven this with his success story of Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity.

Everyone follows the rules, but they don’t. Great entrepreneurs know that if they want to create a product or service that people want, they have to go against the grain and break some rules along the way.

The second lesson: Focus on the future, not the past!

The second lesson is to focus on the future, not the past. If you have been in a similar line of business to another company, don’t try to copy their strategies. Try to find a new way to solve a problem or deliver something exciting and new.

This is where most businesses fail. They base their strategies on what other companies have done before. But by doing so, they are essentially copying someone else’s ideas and competing with them directly. If you want to succeed, you need to be different and unique.

The third lesson: Build something new and better!

The zero to one book summary provides a roadmap and stories of building new things and starting companies. The book’s primary purpose is to provide a blueprint rather than a step-by-step process. It will speak to the designers and makers who are itching to create or invent something new but don’t know where to start.

The fourth lesson: Innovate or die!

Sometimes it is difficult for startups to understand what their customers want. And, what is the best way to fulfill these requirements?

This book teaches you how to innovate and give the world something it has never seen before. According to Peter Thiel, there are two ways in which you can build business:

1. Innovation – New products or services that are different from anything that came before; and

2. Improvement – Continually improve your product or service to add value to your customers.

The fifth lesson: Be a monopoly!

Many people want to start a company but don’t know what they do. They have no unique idea or vision, and thus, they end up building something that already exists.

You will learn the fifth lesson of Zero to One in this lesson. You will be surprised, after reading it, to find out how much time and energy you lost on busy work instead of trying to think about how to create a monopoly.

The sixth lesson: You must think big to get big!

What do you think of when you hear the word “entrepreneur”? If your mind immediately jumps to thoughts of Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Donald Trump, then you’re on the right track.

These three titans of industry are synonymous with the term entrepreneur because they did exactly what they wanted to do and didn’t let anything get in their way.

There’s a famous quote from Henry Ford that goes like this: “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.” This is true for entrepreneurs especially.

Conclusion

Peter Thiel’s wisdom in Zero to One is extraordinary, but there are a few lessons we wanted to highlight above all in this zero to one book summary. The first lesson is that it’s essential to put yourself in the correct positions to have a chance of success. Secondly, it’s vital not to compromise your vision and values when building your business. This post is a summary/review of the key learnings from Peter Thiel’s book Zero To One. We hope you’ve enjoyed it!