I’ve just finished reading Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson and man was it ever hard to put down.

This is Branson’s autobiography, and with the updated edition it covers everything from the very beginnings of Branson’s ventures selling pine trees and birds as a kid to running a student magazine to the Virgin empire as it is now. Intertwined in this are riveting adventures of his near-death experiences flying hot air balloons and insights into his personal life (sometimes more detail than we needed to know).

The narrative makes the book work by ensuring that there really aren’t any dull moments. This is a terrific accomplishment to see in an autobiography and a business book, and Branson has the life experiences to make it worth getting trapped in wanting to read it all in one night.

In addition to being entertained with a lighter read, I also feel that I’ve learned a tremendous amount. Branson provides some real insight into:

• Branson’s first attempts at starting a business.
• Virgin’s beginnings as a mail-order discount music CD venture.
• The leap into retail stores, a recording studio, and becoming a music label.
• The extremely dirty battle between British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
• Virgin’s IPO and subsequent buy-back.
• Hot air ballooning and SpaceShipOne.

One of the most common complaints about people wanting to start a business, or wanting it to grow, is that there’s not enough money. Turns out Branson didn’t have any either, and luckily for us he’s explained where the cash for each business came from. That’s perhaps the most interesting bit (other than the hot air ballooning of course), because it bridges that gap between not having anything and with some perserverance and smarts turning it into an empire.

I highly recommend picking Losing My Virginity up. The only downside is it makes 500 pages go by fast.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 6:40 am and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.