Publisher Becca Braun chatted about the bestselling book “‘Billion or Bust!: Growing a Tech Company in Texas,” written by author Lanham Napier.
Book Description
As president and then CEO of cloud provider Rackspace, Lanham Napier grew the company from $5 million to over $1 billion in revenues and $5 billion in market value while creating thousands of jobs. Under his leadership, especially growing its revered, high-quality customer service, Fanatical Support, Rackspace gained thousands of customers and industry dominance.
A lifelong Texan, Lanham grew the company in his home state, overseeing the development of phenomenal new headquarters (a converted mall) in San Antonio and leading the company’s IPO.
Further, he obsessed over how to increase employee engagement, and he exuberantly succeeded in his goal. But, when Microsoft, Amazon, and Google entered the industry in force, everything changed . . . including Lanham’s relationship with Rackspace executives and the company’s board of directors. Lanham believed he had three options for leading the Rackspace response to the intense competition. But in fact, the board showed him that there was a fourth option he had never even considered.
Becca Braun background
Becca is the founder and president of the Braun Collection, which creates and publishes memorable and adventurous stories for business enthusiasts. Becca believes in the positive power of business done well; she founded the Braun Collection in order to provide interesting, go-deep-fast stories by, for, and about business people.
She is also president of Braun Ink, a ghostwriting firm, and is a prolific executive biographer. She has ghostwritten hundreds of biographies, memoirs, storyboards, comic books, speeches, scripts, articles, books, essays, and white papers for audiences and clients. Her critically acclaimed and bestselling work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Providence Journal, and Harvard Business Review, as well as on podcasts, sports magazines, professional journals, travel publications, academic works, and more.
She received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her undergraduate degree from Harvard, in linguistics. She has four children and lives with her husband in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Braun Collection offers business enthusiasts a suite of True Business Adventure Tales, comic books, and CEO conversation cards. Its action-packed tales and visual stories go deep fast to uncover the lives, obstacles, opportunities, and best and worst ideas of the decision-makers who have changed business.
The Braun Collection is founded on the idea that business is an adventure, and the stories of the adventurers–their trials and tribulations—inform, interest, and entertain.
Q & A
‘Billion or Bust!’ is an exceptional book, which has been extremely popular and recently became a bestseller. What was it like for you on a personal and professional level when you heard it had hit the bestseller list?
I loved learning that it hit the bestseller list because Lanham Napier (the author) tells a great story. His story, which I call a True Business Adventure Tale, has already interested and informed a lot of entrepreneurs and business people.
He tells of his personal adventure growing a company (Rackspace) through hard times (and good times), taking it public, engaging thousands of employees so they enjoy going to work each day, developing phenomenal, five-star customer service, converting an old mall to create gorgeous new headquarters, and doing it all in San Antonio, which is not considered a tech mecca.
In his telling, Lanham lauds the hundreds of people who did the work of growing the company and he doesn’t sidestep the hard times or his own mistakes and errors. I think that’s where the adventure comes in—he tells the story of his own adventures in business. That’s to say–I felt professionally and personally gratified that the Billion or Bust! position on the bestseller list reflects the quality of the story Lanham tells.
When you read ‘Billion or Bust!’ what made you decide to publish it?
Lanham Napier has a phenomenal voice – a voice of humility, humor, love, leadership, and entrepreneurship; also the voice of a proud Texan; and the voice of a husband and father. I have always thought we need more business books that don’t preach and teach but rather that tell a story in a simple, fast-paced, straightforward manner.
That’s what Lanham did with this. It’s short, takes 3-4 hours to read, and is action-packed, and has a distinctive narrator voice. Basically, I thought Lanham’s book did a phenomenal job speaking to the hybrid audience that Braun Collection caters to – business enthusiasts, business professionals, and business students.
As a publisher what is one of your keys for picking books that resonate so much with readers? Do you have any tips for authors looking to get published?
We publish books that tell stories rather than “preach and teach.” We call them True Business Adventure Tales. The narrator’s voice needs to be one of adventure, humor, forthrightness, and love. We want a voice that respects business and capitalism but also gives a sense, through fast-paced storytelling, of how to do business and capitalism better.
Also, the story needs to cater to our hybrid audience of business enthusiasts, business professionals, and business students. One of my favorite things in business school was reading a book, The Goal, that was intended for a similar hybrid audience, and as a publisher, I seek books that speak to that hybrid audience.
I’m humbled and proud (juxtaposition, I know) that numerous colleges and universities use our books in their business classrooms, and then also regular enthusiasts—people looking for a good book on Amazon—love our stories. I wish we had a larger audience, but am hopeful that will come in time and with hard work.
What is it about publishing and getting great books into the hands of readers that made you decide to start your publishing house, Braun Ink?
I’d like to answer this in a really big picture way, with two big picture statements that shape my worldview: First, I believe that capitalism is the worst system there is, except for all the other systems. In other words, I think it can be done better.
Second, in Linguistics, which was my undergraduate major, there’s a saying that “Language is a dialect with an army;” so too do I believe that “Capitalism is a capitalist with a narrative.” If we want to improve capitalism—I want to improve capitalism because I believe we have a long ways to go before it’s actually a great system—then we need narratives and stories from capitalists. So, here’s a third big picture statement.
There’s an emerging school of thought called Narrative Economics that says not that economic situations cause us to tell certain stories but rather that our stories can cause certain economic situations. I want us to be telling those stories about capitalism. For what it’s worth, I’d very much like a great diversity of stories by a great diversity of people.
Littler picture . . . Braun Ink has long been an executive communications and writing services company, and Braun Collection is the imprint under which we provide True Business Adventure Tales, comic book case studies, and BizBio CEO conversation cards to that hybrid business audience I’ve mentioned.
I thought that the stories some business people whom I had written with and for at Braun Ink–I have written, ghostwritten, and co-written about 25 books–were terrific and could serve as some of those stories of capitalism (for better and worse).
Through my clients’ stories, I learned so much. I thought that we could and should get their adventures in the realms of business and capitalism out to an actual audience beyond their own companies or friends and family. But the tales had to be packaged appropriately and marketed well. So, that’s why I started Braun Collection. I’m pleased to say that Braun Collection has just expanded from being an imprint to now (as of May 2022) being its own non-profit.
‘Billion or Bust!’ has been such a hit with readers, do you have other books in the works you can tell us about?
We have another True Business Adventure Tale, SALES FIRST!: Growing Our Company the Old-Fashioned Way, that’s a terrific book. The co-authors, former chemical salesmen, write about growing their plastic colorants business from scratch to $500 million in value, in the Midwest.
They do a great job writing about how to finance the growth of their company not through raising venture capital, which they could not raise, but instead by selling, selling, selling. They got in their beat-up old cars and sold them to customers every day for years. And we also have terrific short comic book case studies that people love, and sets of gorgeous trading cards of diverse, iconic business leaders.
Lastly, our products go deep–if teachers and trainers are using our books in the classroom, they come with Teaching Notes, video shorts, QuickNotes (like Cliff’s Notes), and LIVE (!) video visits by the authors/subjects into classrooms.
When you sign a new author or publish a new book, what is your favorite drink to celebrate with?
Black coffee, the next morning, to get started on whatever’s on my plate that day. I should definitely do more celebrating—I say to my kids when something goes well for them, “permission to celebrate!”—and I need to do more of that. So, your question reminds me of that.
I’m just being honest that so far, I “celebrate” with coffee early in the a.m. while prepping to get more authors in the queue, books published, and information out to people who may like to read them. Publishing AND education are great and fun, but also tough, industries. So, I need the coffee, and I don’t need the margarita or whatever.
“Billion or Bust!: Growing a Tech Company in Texas” is available on Amazon by clicking here.
