Pattern Breakers

'The most important start-up book of the last ten years' - Steve Blank, co-creator of the Lean Start-up movement Based on extensive research and real-world examples, Pattern Breakers upends accepted wisdom about how to achieve breakthrough success, and provides a playbook for anyone launching a start-up or creating a new product. Pattern Breakers had its roots in the time when Mike Maples, a seasoned venture capitalist, was stumped, unable to get a grip on why some businesses he funded - X (formerly Twitter), Twitch and Okta, for example - took off, while others considered likely to succeed shut their doors despite seemingly doing everything right. Was it dumb luck that separated gold from dross? What Maples and Stanford University's Peter Ziebelman discovered contradicts accepted wisdom and upends today's formulaic approach to entrepreneurship. They learned that pattern-breaking ideas radically change the traditional rules, and are driven by people with the independent-mindedness and courage to divert from the consensus. With intriguing and entertaining storytelling based on a lifetime of experience, Pattern Breakers vividly illustrates what differentiates breakthrough ideas from those that initially seem promising but that meet with mediocre results, and why others that may initially seem unworthy - and even idiotic - end up radically changing how people live. 'An indispensable guide to start-up success' - Safi Bahcall, author of Loonshots 'Reveals how elite founders don't just navigate uncertainty - they harness it to redefine what's possible' - Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets

Mike Maples Jr. is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, podcaster and co-founder of Floodgate, a leading seed stage fund in Silicon Valley that invested in companies like X (formerly Twitter), Twitch, Okta and Outreach at the very beginning of their start-up journeys. An eight-time member of the Forbes Midas List of Top Venture Capital investors, he was one of the pioneers of the seed investing movement, which started in the mid-2000s and now is a mainstream part of start-up funding. Mike has over 80,000 X followers and a popular podcast, Pattern Breakers (previously Starting Greatness). Peter Ziebelman splits his time between academia and the business world. He teaches entrepreneurs as a lecturer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he is the principal instructor for the popular graduate school course on entrepreneurship and venture capital. He has also lectured at the Wharton School and the University of Chicago. He started his career as part of the innovative start-up team for speech synthesis semiconductors at Texas Instruments and then later was a systems software entrepreneur at a venture-backed start-up. In 1996 he co-founded Palo Alto Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm. He consults with Fortune 500 companies on entrepreneurship, and advises start-up companies as an independent board member.