I guess by now everybody realized that Inc. Magazine is one of my favorite reads - and yes: I think it’s great, I read it since years and it’s full of great stories with a ton of advice for every entrepreneur, regardless if you are in tech or food or what-have-you.

In one of their recent editions they ran a cover story on Zip Car - the eco-friendly car rental services which changed pretty much everything you ever knew about car rentals. Not that I’m terribly interested in car rentals but in this article Scott Griffith, the CEO of Zip Car talks about how he turned a small, innovative but pretty niche business into a flourishing $100m company.

Scott breaks his story and thus his activities down into seven areas:

• 1 - Break It Down to Build It Up
• 2 - Before You Get Big, Get Tech
• 3 - Brand With Attitude. And BMWs
• 4 - Hand Over Power. Watch Ideas Fly
• 5 - Sell Where Your Competition Won’t
• 6 - First, Prove It. Then, Fund It
• 7 - Know When to Say No. And When to Say Yes

The article makes a great read for every CEO, founder and entrepreneur who wants to learn about (or simply reflect on) growing a company from niche to major player.

And as a little nugget (if you really don’t want to read the whole 6 pages) - here’s my favorite quote from Scott:

Get the box right first, then build more boxes.

Read the article online here.