Effectual Entrepreneurship, Third Edition
Practically Speaking
How to Learn to Let Go
Knowing what he could afford to lose gave this entrepreneur the confidence to quit his day job and build his venture.
Entrepreneur: Tom Fatjo
Entity: Browning-Ferris
Country: USA
Pages 50-51 in
Chapter 4 The Plunge Doesn’t Have to Be a Plunge at All (pp. 41-55)
"Moonlighting
Tom Fatjo was an accountant in Houston in 1967 when a meeting in his community challenged him to take up the garbage collection problem the neighborhood was facing. He borrowed 7,000 US dollars for his first truck.
Every day, Fatjo woke at 4 a.m. to collect garbage for two hours before changing into a suit to go to work in his accounting office. This went on for over a year before Tom sat down to make the hard decision of whether to go on his own."
Under Construction: Join Us in Co-Creation!

Video Resources
References & Links
- How Starbucks Became An $80B Business—YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUBeH7VQaFY&t=50s
- Howard Schultz. (n.d.-a). Schultz Family Foundation. Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://schultzfamilyfoundation.org/team-member/howard-schultz/
- Howard Schultz. (n.d.-b). Forbes. Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.forbes.com/profile/howard-schultz/
- Howard Schultz. (2025). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Howard_Schultz&oldid=1285405168
- Howard Schultz: An Overview of the Entrepreneur’s Career - 2025. (n.d.-c). MasterClass. Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/howard-schultz-life-and-career
- hpeiper. (2018, September 4). Schultz to young entrepreneurs: ‘It can happen for you’. Starbucks Stories EMEA. https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2018/bocconni-university/
- Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz: How to Be Strategic Thinkers | Inc. - YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Djl9_Xc3w
- Starbucks’ CEO Talks Business—YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83yInyY1KLs&t=152s
- Starbucks’s Howard Schultz: From Coffee Entrepreneur to Three-Time CEO. (n.d.). WSJ. Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.wsj.com/story/starbuckss-howard-schultz-from-coffee-entrepreneur-to-three-time-ceo-439768fc
- Taylor, K. (2017, December 13). From Brooklyn to Billionaire: The Story of How Howard Schultz Transformed Starbucks Into an $84 Billion Business. Inc. https://www.inc.com/business-insider/howard-schultz-chairman-former-ceo-starbucks-successful-billionaire-coffee.html
- The Man Behind Starbucks Reveals How He Changed the World—YouTube. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2025, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnA7n9qSB7E&t=255s
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