Make No Small Plans

Lessons on Thinking Big, Chasing Dreams, and Building Community

by Elliott Bisnow, Brett Leve, Jeff Rosenthal and Jeremy Schwartz

Make No Small Plans (2022) unveils the journey of young entrepreneurs who created a global platform for groundbreaking events and conferences - the Summit Series. This book isn't just a company history lesson. It's packed with actionable advice and business wisdom, aiming to spark the entrepreneurial fire in readers.

Meet the Authors

Elliott Bisnow, Jeff Rosenthal, Jeremy Schwartz, and Brett Leve are the brains behind Summit Group, an organization that brings together business and thought leaders from around the world. They're also savvy investors through the Summit Action Fund, which has backed rising stars like Uber and Warby Parker at crucial points in their growth.

The Summit Spark: Where Ideas Catch Fire

If you've got your finger on the pulse of modern business and tech culture, you've probably caught wind of Summit.

Summit kicked off with a simple yet powerful idea: magic happens when you get people talking. It's not groundbreaking - it's why the big shots flock to Davos and Aspen, after all.

But those events are typically a playground for the already-established crowd. We're talking presidents, Pulitzer winners, and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

What about the up-and-comers? The ones building the apps and startups that'll shape tomorrow's world? What if you threw them together and let the conversations flow?

In 2008, four twenty-somethings with more ambition than experience decided to find out. Make No Small Plans is their story.

Long story short, they built Summit, an event company that's become known as the Davos for young entrepreneurs and a breeding ground for rising talent.

Summit's first rodeo, a ski trip in Utah, was a far cry from the glitzy affairs they host today. Picture 19 guests crammed into a rented house with shared bedrooms. The beer ran dry in 30 minutes and the shoestring budget barely covered the ski gear. But it didn't matter.

Once those guests started chatting, sparks flew. They swapped ideas, struck deals, and dreamed up plans for the future. Most importantly, they forged friendships that would last a lifetime.

After Utah, Summit took off like a rocket. Today, they host events worldwide with a speaker list that reads like a who's who of the business world - Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Al Gore, you name it. While Summit's scale has exploded, their values remain rock-solid. As the founders put it, "The more great people you meet, the more great people you will meet."

In the rest of the summary, we'll dive into the Summit story. We won't give you the whole nine yards - that's what Make No Small Plans is for. Instead, we'll zoom in on five snapshots that capture the spirit, ideas, and values of these remarkable entrepreneurs.

Along the way, you'll discover:

• why every idea deserves its moment in the sun;

• how to build business relationships that really matter; and

• why keeping things a little weird can pay off big time.