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Intelligent Fanatics Project: How Great Leaders Build Sustainable Businesses Paperback – September 12, 2016

by Sean Iddings (Author), Ian Cassel (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 124 ratings
How does a great company sustain and grow profits for decades? Many people are familiar with Warren Buffett’s analogy of a moat: various defenses to thwart competition. But moats are fleeting; they are here today and gone tomorrow. The more important question is, who builds and maintains moat? Intelligent fanatics do. These leaders build high-performance organizations that can dominate for decades. Intelligent Fanatics Project looks at the stories of eight intelligent fanatics who built dominant and enduring businesses. A $1,000 investment with each of these intelligent fanatics would, on average, have been worth $3.4 million thirty-seven years later—a 24.6% compounded annual return. They operated in a wide array of industries, in different time periods, on different continents, and against different economic backdrops, yet their leadership styles, strategies, corporate cultures, and values were similar. Intelligent fanatics are what every entrepreneur aspires to be and what every long-term investor dreams of finding and investing in early. Sean Iddings and Ian Cassel examine the common traits of these intelligent fanatics, to help both the investor and the entrepreneur generate extraordinary returns.
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  1. Print length
    218 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    September 12, 2016
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 0.55 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0997576502
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0997576504
  7. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ MicroCapClub Publication (September 12, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 218 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0997576502
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0997576504
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.55 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 124 ratings

About the authors

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  1. Ian Cassel

    Ian Cassel

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    Ian is a full-time microcap investor and founder of MicroCapClub.

    Ian started investing as a teenager and learned from losing his money over and over again. Today he is a full-time private investor that supports himself and his family by investing in microcaps. Microcap companies are the smallest public companies that exist, representing 48% of all public companies in North America. Berkshire Hathaway, Wal-Mart, Amgen, Netflix, and many others started as small microcap companies. Ian’s belief is the key to outsized returns is finding great companies early because all great companies started as small companies.

    MicroCapClub is an exclusive forum for experienced microcap investors focused on microcap companies (sub $300m market cap) trading on United States, Canadian, and UK markets. MicroCapClub was created to be a platform for experienced microcap investors to share and discuss stock ideas. MicroCapClub’s mission is to foster the highest quality microcap investor community, produce educational content for investors, and promote better leadership in the microcap arena.

    Ian received his B.A in economics from Millersville University and earned an MBA from Villanova University.

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  2. Sean Iddings

    Sean Iddings

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    Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
124 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Conor Looney
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read for Investors and Entrepreneurs
Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2016
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Intelligent Fanatics is an easy to read, insightful look at the leaders of successful businesses across many decades and across different geographical regions.

By the end of each well researched chapter you will learn to admire the leaders who have created unique cultures, loyal customers and extraordinary CAGR over many years.

The leaders are well known and (perhaps) unknown to most entrepreneurs and investors; John Patterson of National Cash Register, Simon Marks from Marks & Spencer, Sol Price and Price Club, Les Schwab and his Tire Centers), Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, Chester Cadieux from Quick Trip, Kenneth Iverson of Nucor as well as the trio driving 3G Partners.

This is a great read for investors and entrepreneurs as we strive to understand the competitive edge great leadership brings to a business, regardless of century, industry or country.
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investingbythebooks
4.0 out of 5 stars Traits of success
Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2018
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This is the joint review of Intelligent Fanatics Project from 2016 and Intelligent Fanatics from 2017. The books written by microcap investors Sean Iddings and Ian Cassel are chronicles of corporate and management success in the same genre as iconic business books like In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, Good to Great by Jim Collins and The Outsiders by Bill Thorndike. Iddings and Cassel are also in various ways behind the Anglo-Saxon investor forum MicroCapClub.com and the website intelligentfantatics.com dedicated to sharing case studies of so called intelligent fanatics - the archetype successful businessman profiled in these books. The aim is partly to guide investors in finding companies that will outperform thanks to great management, partly to help CEOs emulate the winning characteristics.

Charlie Munger coined the expression intelligent fanatic. Idding’s and Cassel’s definition from the 2017 book reads as follows: “Founder, CEO or management team with unconventional ideas and a fanatical drive to build a high-performance organization. A learning machine that can quickly adapt to change. Able to create a trust based culture that aligns everyone to think like owners. Focused on acquiring, training and motivate their best talent. Their time horizon in in ten-year increments, not quarterly, and they invest in their business accordingly. Regardless of the industry, they are able to create an impenetrable moat that competitors initially cannot understand and eventually fear.” Almost every word in this definition is in my view critically important as an ingredient for - at least the chance of - sustained business success. The core of the term is however an obsessive drive towards a visionary goal guided by sharp analytical reasoning.

The first book also offers a formula that is said to embody an intelligent fanatic:
Intelligent Fanatic = (Long-term vision + Focus + Energy + Integrity + Intelligence) * Execution
The formula – more so than the definition – zooms in on how Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have described the management qualities they search for. It is obvious that the authors are themselves standing on the shoulders of giants in their quest of trying to distill what it is that leads to business accomplishment. In the first book’s definition they had a second paragraph where an intelligent fanatic also could mean the “outsider CEO” of Thorndike. However, the capital allocation angle of business management isn’t at all as prominent among the intelligent fanatic case studies as in those of The Outsiders and this section was subsequently dropped. My feeling is that the authors by the second book had gained the confidence to move on from their towering heroes.

These two books are very simple when it comes to their set up. A brief introduction and short conclusion frame 8-9 case studies of about 15-20 pages that each profile a – often relatively unknown - CEO and how he (the profiled intelligent fanatics are exclusively men) managed to steer his company to a roaring long-term success. No one will be surprised that the traits and actions from the definition show up in various forms in almost all chapters. The similarities certainly underline the point that there are key traits and actions that can lead to success but it also makes the chapters somewhat alike and thus the reading in my view becomes a bit repetitive.

Iddings and Cassel deserve huge credit for their painstaking groundwork in finding, researching and presenting these CEOs in two books. Still, in my view, the next book from Intelligent Fanatics LLC cannot simply picture an additional batch of CEOs. The success criteria are now set (although it is always tough to weed out survivorship bias). The next step should according to me be to help investors detect indications of these criteria and present a methodology of how to handle tradeoffs. For now however, these books are a great start.

This is a review by investingbythebooks.com
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Ian's amazing community of intelligent stock sleuths
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2016
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As a full-fledged member of the MicroCap Club, Ian's amazing community of intelligent stock sleuths, its great to see him share with the public his deep wisdom of what truly matters to small-cap investors - the jockey. This book was an engaging, easy to read tale of what it takes to build a successful company from the ground up. My book is already filled with highlights. The last chapter which summarizes the key basic characteristics of these empire builders is worth the price of admission alone.

I know there are more Intelligent Fanatics out there, and I hope Ian and Sean are already planning a sequel!
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5.0 out of 5 stars The Superpower of Incentives
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2016
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Getting to the complexity and character of the men and the dynamics that great businesses is no easy task. Particularly where information must largely come from others' reinterpretation of history. Sean and Ian do a great job distilling the material into what matters most in an area which, while never quite one size fits all, has many rhymes. Considerations around and original approaches to incentives emerge as a common and vital ingredient.

This is an excellent, straightforward read that covers the bases using some well known case studies. Valuable history and analysis for investors and business owners alike in a compact space.
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Jon L. Angell
4.0 out of 5 stars Inspiration for entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2016
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This was a very readable book that told many useful stories. I would suggest this book primarily to small business owners and individual investors. The book is both motivating and instructional on key elements that business powerhouses seem to have in common.

Inspiration for entrepreneurs and business leaders. I purchased the book after I heard a buzz among some online friends and not long later received a complimentary copy at an investor conference. Even though several of the business stories mentioned in the book to illustrate many of the authors findings are likely well known to business school graduates I hadn't ever been exposed to them before. I particularly enjoyed the story of John H Patterson and National Cash Register, the story of Herb Kelleher and Southwest Airlines and the story of convenience stores (Quik Trip as well as others) as seen through the vision of Chester Cadieux. Easily read, entertaining, informational and inspirational.

I'm very happy to hold this book in my personal library and hope that Mr. Iddings and Mr. Cassel of the MicroCapClub follow up with similar offerings....
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Philip L Eby
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring read
Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2017
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Great book for investors and business owners. As I read the stories of the business people in this book I found myself very inspired to think about how I can apply the principals they used to my own small business. I was particularly impressed with how all of them were concerned about the success of their people and their willingness to think outside of the box of "conventional wisdom." Thanks to Iddings and Cassel for their work on this!
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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on July 6, 2018
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Must read for business owners
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Battaglia Antonio
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in Italy on December 6, 2016
Verified Purchase
If you’re looking for a book that will tell you the secrets (Intelligent Fanatics) behind long term vision, capital allocators and multibaggers, this is the book for you.
There are multiple case studies that I was not familiar with and really enjoyed.
I liked reading the chapter's about Les Schwab.
A must read for any business owner or investor.
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dane
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book nice reading
Reviewed in Australia on December 28, 2016
Verified Purchase
It was a good book that covered a lot and it was easy to read. Written so anyone could understand.
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Shrikant Bandaru
4.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in India on June 25, 2023
Verified Purchase
Nice simple book. Useful to know the common attributes of some very successful business owners. There are some good lessons to take from.
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Bondi_Dan
3.0 out of 5 stars The book was quite repetitiv
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 22, 2018
Verified Purchase
I thought the book was quite repetitive.

After the 'Chapter Writing Formula' was used in the first chapter it becomes a bit of a grind to read. There are some interesting stories but other stories drag on to fit the 'structure' of the book.

For sure the Authors are probably lovely people, but I think they are a bit 'self important' - setting up a web site to support their wonderful theory. They have not invented some magic science.

This book does not add up to much, look elsewhere !
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