This work offers a summary of the book “ALMOST PERFECT: How a Bunch of Regular Guys Built WordPerfect Corporation” by W. E. Pete Peterson.
In 1977 Bruce Bastian started writing a 3D computer software package while he was at university. Noticing his potential, his computer science Professor offered him a job to write a word processing software package. By 1980 Bastian, Ashton and Don Owens had launched their first software for general computers, and were making $400,000 in sales. By 1993 the first version of WordPerfect for Windows was launched and sales had risen to $533 million, whilst the workforce had grown to a fleet of almost 3,000.
Written by one of the company's earliest employees, Pete Peterson, Almost Perfect tells the story of the company's rise to fame. You hear straight from the horse's mouth about the company's progress and innovation as well as its challenges and growing pains. The summary of Almost Perfect concludes with a section on what makes a successful company addressing key factors from organization structure to cash flow limitations. Working through these questions is a fantastic way to measure the success of your company, and to improve it based on Peterson's experiences and suggestions.
