You’re right about Jack Welch. To use him as a best practice is just as shortsighted as copying Apple–what worked for him might not necessarily work for you. But in this case, it’s more of a management style, not an isolated product or industry. Like in basketball, there’s something to be gained from studying the great coaches and players–their strategies and their decisions.

If you’re not already reading The Ad Contrarian blog, you should definitely check it out. He covers a lot of stuff you do in this post, like why people who claim Social Media is the answer to everything are way off:

http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2009/08/more-social-media-baloney.html

“If I am building a start-up, I want to know exactly what will convert customers and grow my business.” — so true. I eventually want to run my own business(es) one day, so I think about the same thing, especially when I’m reading business books.

So what’s the answer? I think most of it is fundamentals:

* Great customer service
* A product that fills a need
* Focus on your strengths instead of weaknesses
* Healthy company culture, etc. etc.

But most people don’t want to talk about the fundamentals because they’re boring, or routine, or “unsexy”. The basics don’t sell. On top of that, people are always looking for shortcuts (Ex: the weight loss industry over the past 30 yrs has exploded, but in the same time period, obesity has increased).

One other thing: you mentioned the “all-stars.” Personally, I avoid reading most autobiographies because they’re so subjective by nature. Some of the best books I’ve read like “The Millionaire Next Door” and “First, Break All The Rules” are based on extensive research and I think they give a nice objective overview of what happened and why certain things worked.

If you take a book by Jack Welch, for example, I think what he thinks worked (and what actually did work) can be two different things. I’m not saying that Welch wasn’t successful – far from it, but what worked for him may not work for us. Not only that, GE was its own little world, and what worked for that company may not work in another.

Which brings me back to why fundamentals are important. I think if we stick to them, we’ll be OK. All the little things that make one successful company or leader who or what they are is specific to that situation. Jobs is known as a tyrant and a very difficult boss to work for – I don’t think either one of us would agree that this approach is healthy or something we would want in our own companies, but it has worked for him (so far).

I think it’s up to us, as future entrepreneurs, to master the fundamentals and figure out what those little things are – and make them work for us.