This week I’ve read about one of the most amazing business turnarounds ever…

It’s a story I never knew and probably not many of you know about it either.

The original Toy Story movie was released in 1996. Wow! It doesn’t seem like a quarter of a century ago.

We didn’t have any kids at the time, but my then girlfriend (now wife) and I still went to see it, as it was simply fantastic with the most amazing graphics you’d ever seen.

Thinking back, we didn’t even realise it was a small company called Pixar creating this ground-breaking technology and making these wonderful films with it.

‘To Pixar and Beyond’ is the story of how Lawrence Levy found a way to save a company, that Steve Job’s had bought from Star Wars creator George Lucas 10 years earlier.

Pixar was floundering in the dark and going nowhere fast. None of their 4 business units made much money and Job’s pumped in $50 million of his own money to keep them alive.

Levy worked tirelessly to try and find a foot hold, something he could build on to create lasting success, which he could formulate a business plan around.

Jobs wanted to take Pixar public to raise much needed investment cash and to get his own money back. But Levy couldn’t initially find anything worth floating.

Even the deal Job’s had signed with Disney for the world’s first 3D animated feature film had tied in Pixar in knots, providing less than 10% of any box office takings for 4 years work.

But the technology Pixar had developed was ground-breaking, with Toy Story being the most successful film of the year, leading to an IPO which made Job’s a billionaire.

Then, following further years of record-breaking success with the Incredibles, Monsters Inc and finding Nemo, Disney bought them for $7.4 billion.

The story is incredible, something you’d only really see in the movies (excuse the pun).

‘To Pixar & Beyond’ gets a thumbs up & 5 stars.

Any questions please connect and message me.

Remember, you can watch all our business book reviews at https://mytotalofficesolutions.co.uk/business-book-reviews/

…thank you & see you next week.