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This book addresses gaps in the literature by presenting a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach to the study and practice of family business that draws from such fields as psychology, anthropology, sociology, strategy, family therapy, family studies, wealth management, and international business. An international array of experts addresses both macro issues (including the role of family businesses in new business creation and economic development, influences of culture on family business, public policies that can encourage or threaten family business) and firm management (strategic and financial decision making, governance, entering and exiting). Featuring case studies from firms in a variety of industries, Understanding Family Businesses not only offers provocative new insights on family business dynamics, but outlines an agenda for future research.
Nearly everyone recognizes iconic companies like Microsoft, Dell, and Ford. But what do we really know about the entrepreneurs (Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and Henry Ford, respectively) who founded these firms or the factors that influenced the birth and development of these corporate giants? How do entrepreneurs identify opportunity and how do they address the personal, social, and financial risks associated with designing, launching, and sustaining a new venture? There are many steps between having an idea and going public--this book explores the entrepreneurial process through all of its stages, a process in which some half a billion people are engaged worldwide every year.
Illustrated through numerous real-life examples, the book is a map of the entrepreneurial journey, exploring the wide variety of opportunities open to the entrepreneur and how to build upon them, including an overview of such essential principles as screening, market research, product development, financing, and marketing and sales strategies. It also covers legal issues, intellectual property protection, motivating employees, managing boards and investors, use of technology, and the international environment. Featuring examples of business plans and presentations, exercises and checklists, and a glossary of key terms, this volume provides a solid introduction to the process of business creation that will appeal to students and educators, general readers, and budding entrepreneurs.
This volume presents eight in-depth case studies of family-owned firms that represent a variety of industries and situations. Each case explores the dynamics of managing in chaotic environments and how family leadership responded to crises. Lessons learned from these experiences will help readers understand how to solve problems under conditions of uncertainty and how to avoid failure, when the survival of the firm is at stake. Featuring questions and learning notes designed to engage the reader directly, this volume will be a valuable resources for students and members of entrepreneurial and family-owned firms, as well as consultants, investors, and other professional advisors.
Drawing from a fresh review of the literature, their own primary research and experience in entrepreneurial ventures, the authors argue that the relationship between growth and firm performance is, in fact, inconclusive. Despite the strength of contemporary bias, there is strong evidence that the growth-profitability relationship is problematic. For example, rapid growth may lead to considerable organizational challenges that can seriously constrain a firm’s ability to generate sustainable profits. Also, it is not uncommon that a growth firm becomes a victim of its own success.
Using examples from industries as diverse as airlines, accounting, biotechnology, information technology, personal products, wineries, and food establishments, the authors highlight limitations to research due to variations in the choice of growth indicators, the calculation of growth measures, the measurement periods, and whether objective or subjective measures have been used. Moreover, researchers have equated growth with high growth and almost automatically assumed that this also means high technology, while policy makers appear to have interpreted this as high employment.
Armed with more precise definitions and understandings of key concepts and the nature of their causality, the authors consider the implications of restoring profitability to the core of entrepreneurship for future research, firm strategy, financing, organizational structure, resource allocation, and public policy.
The volume addresses such questions as: Why do some people start business and others do not? Is entrepreneurship a natural quality or can it be taught? Do entrepreneurs think differently from others? While there is a great deal of literature exploring the dynamics of new firm creation, policies to promote innovation and technology transfer, and the psychology of creativity; research on entrepreneurial mindset or cognition is relatively new, and draws largely from such related fields as organizational behavior, cognitive and social psychology, career development, and consumer research. In this book, editors Brännback and Carsrud have reassembled the contributors to Understanding the Entrepreneurial Mind to discuss new research paradigms given their vantage point years after the original volume was published.
Featuring the most current literature references, Revisiting the Entrepreneurial Mind continues to challenge conventional approaches to entrepreneurship and articulate an agenda for future research.
"It's New Year's resolution time, and Mark Cuban's new book offers the rationale for a good one." —BUSINESS INSIDER
Using the greatest material from his popular Blog Maverick, Cuban has collected and updated his postings on business and life to provide a catalog of insider knowledge on what it takes to become a thriving entrepreneur. He tells his own rags-to-riches story of how he went from selling powdered milk and sleeping on friends' couches to owning his own company and becoming a multi-billion dollar success story. His unconventional yet highly effective ideas on how to build a successful business offer entrepreneurs at any stage of their careers a huge edge over their competitors.
"In short, [HOW TO WIN AT THE SPORT OF BUSINESS] exceeded...expectations. Short chapters...got right to the point and were not filled with 'stuffing'." —HUFFINGTON POST
Elon Musk spotlights the technology and vision of Elon Musk, the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, who sold one of his Internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius’s life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits.
Vance uses Musk’s story to explore one of the pressing questions of our age: can the nation of inventors and creators who led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk—one of the most unusual and striking figures in American business history—is a contemporary, visionary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy.
Thorough and insightful, Elon Musk brings to life a technology industry that is rapidly and dramatically changing by examining the life of one of its most powerful and influential titans.
Daymond John has been practicing the power of broke ever since he started selling his home-sewn t-shirts on the streets of Queens. With a $40 budget, Daymond had to strategize out-of-the-box ways to promote his products. Luckily, desperation breeds innovation, and so he hatched an idea for a creative campaign that eventually launched the FUBU brand into a $6 billion dollar global phenomenon. But it might not have happened if he hadn’t started out broke - with nothing but hope and a ferocious drive to succeed by any means possible.
Here, the FUBU founder and star of ABC’s Shark Tank shows that, far from being a liability, broke can actually be your greatest competitive advantage as an entrepreneur. Why? Because starting a business from broke forces you to think more creatively. It forces you to use your resources more efficiently. It forces you to connect with your customers more authentically, and market your ideas more imaginatively. It forces you to be true to yourself, stay laser focused on your goals, and come up with those innovative solutions required to make a meaningful mark.
Drawing his own experiences as an entrepreneur and branding consultant, peeks behind-the scenes from the set of Shark Tank, and stories of dozens of other entrepreneurs who have hustled their way to wealth, John shows how we can all leverage the power of broke to phenomenal success. You’ll meet:
· Steve Aoki, the electronic dance music (EDM) deejay who managed to parlay a series of $100 gigs into becoming a global superstar who has redefined the music industry
· Gigi Butler, a cleaning lady from Nashville who built cupcake empire on the back of a family recipe, her maxed out credit cards, and a heaping dose of faith
· 11-year old Shark Tank guest Mo Bridges who stitched together a winning clothing line with just his grandma’s sewing machine, a stash of loose fabric, and his unique sartorial flair
When your back is up against the wall, your bank account is empty, and creativity and passion are the only resources you can afford, success is your only option. Here you’ll learn how to tap into that Power of Broke to scrape, hustle, and dream your way to the top.
New York Times Bestseller
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get rich easily, while others are destined for a life of financial struggle? Is the difference found in their education, intelligence, skills, timing, work habits, contacts, luck, or their choice of jobs, businesses, or investments?
The shocking answer is: None of the above!
In his groundbreaking Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker states: "Give me five minutes, and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life!" Eker does this by identifying your "money and success blueprint." We all have a personal money blueprint ingrained in our subconscious minds, and it is this blueprint, more than anything, that will determine our financial lives. You can know everything about marketing, sales, negotiations, stocks, real estate, and the world of finance, but if your money blueprint is not set for a high level of success, you will never have a lot of money—and if somehow you do, you will most likely lose it! The good news is that now you can actually reset your money blueprint to create natural and automatic success.
Secrets of the Millionaire Mind is two books in one. Part I explains how your money blueprint works. Through Eker's rare combination of street smarts, humor, and heart, you will learn how your childhood influences have shaped your financial destiny. You will also learn how to identify your own money blueprint and "revise" it to not only create success but, more important, to keep and continually grow it.
In Part II you will be introduced to seventeen "Wealth Files," which describe exactly how rich people think and act differently than most poor and middle-class people. Each Wealth File includes action steps for you to practice in the real world in order to dramatically increase your income and accumulate wealth.
If you are not doing as well financially as you would like, you will have to change your money blueprint. Unfortunately your current money blueprint will tend to stay with you for the rest of your life, unless you identify and revise it, and that's exactly what you will do with the help of this extraordinary book. According to T. Harv Eker, it's simple. If you think like rich people think and do what rich people do, chances are you'll get rich too!
Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.
There are many others like Chris – those who’ve found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful. Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn’t depend on shelving what you currently do. You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful.
In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.
Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment. It’s all about finding the intersection between your “expertise” – even if you don’t consider it such -- and what other people will pay for. You don’t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees. All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.
Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick. Among Chris’s key principles: if you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish – sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.
In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold. Today, we know that it’s up to us to change our lives. And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs. This remarkable book will start you on your way.
Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.
The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.
Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets.
The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.
Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.
Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.
Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.
Show Your Work! is about why generosity trumps genius. It’s about getting findable, about using the network instead of wasting time “networking.” It’s not self-promotion, it’s self-discovery—let others into your process, then let them steal from you. Filled with illustrations, quotes, stories, and examples, Show Your Work! offers ten transformative rules for being open, generous, brave, productive.
In chapters such as You Don’t Have to Be a Genius; Share Something Small Every Day; and Stick Around, Kleon creates a user’s manual for embracing the communal nature of creativity— what he calls the “ecology of talent.” From broader life lessons about work (you can’t find your voice if you don’t use it) to the etiquette of sharing—and the dangers of oversharing—to the practicalities of Internet life (build a good domain name; give credit when credit is due), it’s an inspiring manifesto for succeeding as any kind of artist or entrepreneur in the digital age.
The consensus is clear: MBA programs are a waste of time and money. Even the elite schools offer outdated assembly-line educations about profit-and-loss statements and PowerPoint presentations. After two years poring over sanitized case studies, students are shuffled off into middle management to find out how business really works.
Josh Kaufman has made a business out of distilling the core principles of business and delivering them quickly and concisely to people at all stages of their careers. His blog has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the best business books and most powerful business concepts of all time. In The Personal MBA, he shares the essentials of sales, marketing, negotiation, strategy, and much more.
True leaders aren't made by business schools-they make themselves, seeking out the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to succeed. Read this book and in one week you will learn the principles it takes most people a lifetime to master.
Ryan Blair's middle-class upbringing came to an abrupt end when his father succumbed to drug addiction and abandoned his family. Blair and his mother moved to a dangerous neighborhood, and soon he was in and out of juvenile detention, joining a gang just to survive. Then his mother fell in love with a successful entrepreneur who took Ryan under his wing. With his mentor's help, Blair turned himself into a wildly successful multimillionaire, starting and selling three companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
This book will inspire and guide people who are willing to do whatever necessary-hard work, long hours, sweat equity-to take their vision from paper to pavement. Blair gives readers a road map for successful entrepreneurship.
When Mr. Kleon was asked to address college students in upstate New York, he shaped his speech around the ten things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out. The talk went viral, and its author dug deeper into his own ideas to create Steal Like an Artist, the book. The result is inspiring, hip, original, practical, and entertaining. And filled with new truths about creativity: Nothing is original, so embrace influence, collect ideas, and remix and re-imagine to discover your own path. Follow your interests wherever they take you. Stay smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring—the creative you will need to make room to be wild and daring in your imagination.
“A creative and open-hearted business model for our times.”—The Wall Street Journal
Why this book is for you:
• You’re ready to make a difference in the world—through your own start-up business, a nonprofit organization, or a new project that you create within your current job.
• You want to love your work, work for what you love, and have a positive impact on the world—all at the same time.
• You’re inspired by charity: water, method, and FEED Projects and want to learn how these organizations got their start.
• You’re curious about how someone who never made a pair of shoes, attended fashion school, or worked in retail created one of the fastest-growing footwear companies in the world by giving shoes away.
• You’re looking for a new model of success to share with your children, students, co-workers, and members of your community.
You’re ready to start something that matters.
"Go to school, get a good job, save 10% of your paycheck, buy a used car, cancel the movie channels, quit drinking expensive Starbucks mocha lattes, save and penny-pinch your life away, trust your life-savings to the stock market, and one day, when you are oh, say, 65 years old, you can retire rich."
The mainstream financial gurus have sold you blindly down the river to a great financial gamble: You've been hoodwinked to believe that wealth can be created by recklessly trusting in the uncontrollable and unpredictable markets: the housing market, the stock market, and the job market. This impotent financial gamble dubiously promises wealth in a wheelchair -- sacrifice your adult life for a financial plan that reaps dividends in the twilight of life.
Accept the Slowlane as your blueprint for wealth and your financial future will blow carelessly asunder on a sailboat of HOPE: HOPE you can find a job and keep it, HOPE the stock market doesn't tank, HOPE the economy rebounds, HOPE, HOPE, and HOPE. Do you really want HOPE to be the centerpiece for your family's financial plan?
Drive the Slowlane road and you will find your life deteriorate into a miserable exhibition about what you cannot do, versus what you can. For those who don't want a lifetime subscription to "settle-for-less" and a slight chance of elderly riches, there is an alternative; an expressway to extraordinary wealth that can burn a trail to financial independence faster than any road out there.
Why jobs, 401(k)s, mutual funds, and 40-years of mindless frugality will never make you rich young.
Why most entrepreneurs fail and how to immediately put the odds in your favor.
The real law of wealth: Leverage this and wealth has no choice but to be magnetized to you.
The leading cause of poorness: Change this and you change everything.
How the rich really get rich - and no, it has nothing to do with a paycheck or a 401K match.
Why the guru's grand deity - compound interest - is an impotent wealth accelerator.
Why the guru myth of "do what you love" will most likely keep you poor, not rich. And 250+ more poverty busting distinctions...
Demand the Fastlane, an alternative road-to-wealth; one that actually ignites dreams and creates millionaires young, not old. Change lanes and find your explosive wealth accelerator. Hit the Fastlane, crack the code to wealth, and find out how to live rich for a lifetime.
In this book, Alexis will share his ideas, tips and even his own doodles about harnessing the power of the web for good, and along the way, he will share his philosophy with young entrepreneurs all over the globe.
At 29, Ohanian has come to personify the dorm-room tech entrepreneur, changing the world without asking permission. Within a couple of years of graduating from the University of Virginia, Ohanian did just that, selling reddit for millions of dollars. He's gone on to start many other companies, like hipmunk and breadpig, all while representing Y Combinator and investing in over sixty other tech startups. WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION is his personal guidebook as to how other aspiring entrepreneurs can follow in his footsteps.
Amoruso spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and scrounging in dumpsters for leftover bagels. By age twenty-two she had dropped out of school, and was broke, directionless, and checking IDs in the lobby of an art school—a job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was in that lobby that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay.
Flash forward to today, and she’s the founder of Nasty Gal and the founder and CEO of Girlboss. Sophia was never a typical CEO, or a typical anything, and she’s written #GIRLBOSS for other girls like her: outsiders (and insiders) seeking a unique path to success, even when that path is windy as all hell and lined with naysayers.
#GIRLBOSS proves that being successful isn’t about where you went to college or how popular you were in high school. It’s about trusting your instincts and following your gut; knowing which rules to follow and which to break; when to button up and when to let your freak flag fly.
“A witty and cleverly told account . . . It’s this kind of honest advice, plus the humorous ups and downs of her rise in online retail, that make the book so appealing.” —Los Angeles Times
“Amoruso teaches the innovative and entrepreneurial among us to play to our strengths, learn from our mistakes, and know when to break a few of the traditional rules.” —Vanity Fair
“#GIRLBOSS is more than a book . . . #GIRLBOSS is a movement.” —Lena Dunham
When managers and marketers outline their social media strategies, they plan for the “right hook”—their next sale or campaign that’s going to knock out the competition. Even companies committed to jabbing—patiently engaging with customers to build the relationships crucial to successful social media campaigns—want to land the punch that will take down their opponent or their customer’s resistance in one blow. Right hooks convert traffic to sales and easily show results. Except when they don’t.
Thanks to massive change and proliferation in social media platforms, the winning combination of jabs and right hooks is different now. Vaynerchuk shows that while communication is still key, context matters more than ever. It’s not just about developing high-quality content, but developing high-quality content perfectly adapted to specific social media platforms and mobile devices—content tailor-made for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr.
WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER
“Sprint offers a transformative formula for testing ideas that works whether you’re at a startup or a large organization. Within five days, you’ll move from idea to prototype to decision, saving you and your team countless hours and countless dollars. A must read for entrepreneurs of all stripes.” —Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup
From three partners at Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for solving tough problems, proven at more than a hundred companies.
Entrepreneurs and leaders face big questions every day: What’s the most important place to focus your effort, and how do you start? What will your idea look like in real life? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution?
Now there’s a surefire way to answer these important questions: the sprint. Designer Jake Knapp created the five-day process at Google, where sprints were used on everything from Google Search to Google X. He joined Braden Kowitz and John Zeratsky at Google Ventures, and together they have completed more than a hundred sprints with companies in mobile, e-commerce, healthcare, finance, and more.
A practical guide to answering critical business questions, Sprint is a book for teams of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to nonprofits. It’s for anyone with a big opportunity, problem, or idea who needs to get answers today.
Gerber walks you through the steps in the life of a business—from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed—and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business.
The E-Myth Revisited will help you grow your business in a productive, assured way.
The reality: The biggest thing you won't learn in college is how to succeed professionally.
Some of the smartest, most successful people in the country didn't finish college. None of them learned their most critical skills at an institution of higher education. And like them, most of what you'll need to learn to be successful you'll have to learn on your own, outside of school.
Michael Ellsberg set out to fill in the gaps by interviewing a wide range of millionaires and billionaires who don't have college degrees, including fashion magnate Russell Simmons, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and founding president Sean Parker, WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg, and Pink Floyd songwriter and lead guitarist David Gilmour. Among the fascinating things he learned:
How fashion designer Marc Ecko started earning $1000 a week in high school with his own clothing business, and later grew it into an empire. How billionaire Phillip Ruffin went from lowly department store employee with no college degree, to owner of Treasure Island on the Vegas Strip. How John Paul DeJoria went from homelessness to billionaire as founder of John Paul Mitchell Systems Hair Care Products.This book is your guide to developing practical success skills in the real world. Even if you've already gone through college, the most important skills weren't in the curriculum-how to find great mentors, build a world-class network, learn real-world marketing and sales, make your work meaningful (and your meaning work), build the brand of you, master the art of bootstrapping, and more.
Learning the skills in this book well is a necessary addition to any education. This book shows you the way, whether you're a high school dropout or a graduate of Harvard Law School.
From one of the stars of ABC’s Shark Tank and QVC’s Clever & Unique Creations by Lori Greiner comes a hands-on, nuts-and-bolts guide to getting a new product or company off the ground and making it a success.
Turn your idea into a reality.
Become your own boss.
Make your first million.
Achieve financial freedom.
Lori Greiner shows you how.
Lori Greiner is one of America’s most successful, prolific, and sought-after entrepreneurs. But before she created her first hit product, all she had was a great idea, a tireless work ethic, and no clue how to get it to market. So Lori taught herself everything she needed to know about bringing an invention from concept to creation to consumers in months. She learned the ins and outs of business, manufacturing, investors, patents, marketing, and more. Now, five hundred million dollars in retail sales later, in an honest and straightforward fashion, Lori reveals the path she took to her wealth of experience and hard-won wisdom so that you, too, can achieve financial freedom and see your invention become reality.
Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! is a hands-on, nuts-and-bolts guide to getting a new product or company off the ground and making it profitable. Sharing her own secret formula and personal stories along the way, she provides vital information and advice on topics that can often intimidate, frustrate, and stump aspiring entrepreneurs.
Offering behind-the-scenes insights into her experiences on ABC’s Shark Tank and QVC-TV’s Clever & Unique Creations by Lori Greiner, as well as valuable lessons learned from the mistakes and triumphs of her early career, Lori proves that, with hard work and the right idea, anyone can turn themselves into the next overnight success.
So a note to all the weekend inventors, armchair CEOs, and get-rich-quick dreamers: No more excuses! With Lori Greiner as your personal mentor, the only thing left to do is make your product, get out there, and sell it!
Inside, Lori covers such topic as . . .
• Market research: Is your idea a hero or a zero? Don’t be so fixated on the end result that you forget to make something that people actually want to buy.
• Product design: I have an idea, now what’s next? From concept to prototype to final product: How do I make it and where do I start?
• Funding: Although loans, investments, and crowd-sourcing are great ways to access cash, first tap into your own resources as wisely as possible.
• Manufacturing: Seeing your final product roll off the assembly line is a magical moment, but there are things to watch out for so you get there in a cost-effective way.
• Protecting your idea: To patent or not to patent, and other things you can do to safeguard your idea.
• The secrets to selling successfully: You got the product made, now learn how to get people to buy it!
Advance praise for Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!
“I am used to dealing with Mavericks and Lori fits the bill! Lori Greiner’s insightful and practical book, Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! should be on the required reading list for anyone who wants to take an idea and turn it into a real business.”—Mark Cuban
“While most people write a book to make money, it’s evident in reading Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! that Lori’s goal is to share her secrets with the reader, and make them money.”—Mark Burnett
From the Hardcover edition.
In the New York Times bestseller The School of Greatness, Howes shares the essential tips and habits he gathered in interviewing "the greats" on his wildly popular podcast of the same name. In discussion with people like Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson and Pencils of Promise CEO Adam Braun, Howes figured out that greatness is unearthed and cultivated from within. The masters of greatness are not successful because they got lucky or are innately more talented, but because they applied specific habits and tools to embrace and overcome adversity in their lives.
A framework for personal development, The School of Greatness gives you the tools, knowledge, and actionable resources you need to reach your potential. Howes anchors each chapter with a specific lesson he culled from his greatness "professors" and his own experiences to teach you how to create a vision, develop hustle, and use dedication, mindfulness, joy, and love to reach goals. His lessons and practical exercises prove that anyone is capable of achieving success and that we can all strive for greatness in our everyday lives.
Every day thousands of people are losing their jobs, their income, and their security—perhaps you are one of them. However, with the right strategies, you can easily achieve financial independence. The Laptop Millionaire provides easy to follow step-by-step strategies you can use to make real money online. Author Mark Anastasi reveals the exact strategies he used to make millions and includes the success stories of other millionaire Internet entrepreneurs. Whether you need an extra hundred dollars a day or want to start an Internet Empire, this book gives you the tools and advice you need.
His no-fluff, no-filler strategies provide a blueprint to online success allowing you to discover the laptop lifestyle for yourself.
How anyone can make $700-3,000 a week thanks to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other Social Media sites The simple steps to creating an online business—featuring the 3 steps that led Mark to his first $10,000 a month business! How the 21 Millionaire Secrets can transform your lifeIf you read and apply what Anastasi has laid out in his book, you will be well on your way to becoming a millionaire.
"EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS should be required reading for anyone interested in the ways exponential technologies are reinventing best practices in business." —Ray Kurzweil, Director of Engineering at Google
In business, performance is key. In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth.
In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company—the Exponential Organization—that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology. An ExO can eliminate the incremental, linear way traditional companies get bigger, leveraging assets like community, big data, algorithms, and new technology into achieving performance benchmarks ten times better than its peers.
Three luminaries of the business world—Salim Ismail, Yuri van Geest, and Mike Malone—have researched this phenomenon and documented ten characteristics of Exponential Organizations. Here, in EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS, they walk the reader through how any company, from a startup to a multi-national, can become an ExO, streamline its performance, and grow to the next level.
"EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS is the most pivotal book in its class. Salim examines the future of organizations and offers readers his insights on the concept of Exponential Organizations, because he himself embodies the strategy, structure, culture, processes, and systems of this new breed of company." —John Hagel, The Center for the Edge
Chosen by Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, to be one of Bloomberg's Best Books of 2015
Drawing on a decade of research, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them. He looks at whether it is a good idea to cofound with friends or relatives, how and when to split the equity within the founding team, and how to recognize when a successful founder-CEO should exit or be fired. Wasserman explains how to anticipate, avoid, or recover from disastrous mistakes that can splinter a founding team, strip founders of control, and leave founders without a financial payoff for their hard work and innovative ideas. He highlights the need at each step to strike a careful balance between controlling the startup and attracting the best resources to grow it, and demonstrates why the easy short-term choice is often the most perilous in the long term.
The Founder's Dilemmas draws on the inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, while mining quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders.
People problems are the leading cause of failure in startups. This book offers solutions.
Gary Vaynerchuk—the inspiring and unconventional entrepreneur who introduced us to the concept of crush it—knows how to get things done, have fun, and be massively successful. A marketing and business genius, Gary had the foresight to go beyond traditional methods and use social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to reach an untapped audience that continues to grow.
#AskGaryVee showcases the most useful and interesting questions Gary has addressed on his popular show. Distilling and expanding on the podcast’s most urgent and evergreen themes, Gary presents practical, timely, and timeless advice on marketing, social media, entrepreneurship, and everything else you’ve been afraid to ask but are dying to know. Gary gives you the insights and information you need on everything from effectively using Twitter to launching a small business, hiring superstars to creating a personal brand, launching products effectively to staying healthy—and even buying wine.
Whether you’re planning to start your own company, working in digital media, or have landed your first job in a traditional company, #AskGaryVee is your essential guide to making things happen in a big way.
“I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump
Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight.
Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal
“Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”—The New York Times
“Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.”—Chicago Tribune
“Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.”—Boston Herald
“A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.”—New York Post
Chad Mureta has made millions starting and running his own successful app business, and now he explains how you can do it, too, in this non-technical, easy-to-follow guide. App Empire provides the confidence and the tools necessary for taking the next step towards financial success and freedom. The book caters to many platforms including iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry.
This book includes real-world examples to inspire those who are looking to cash in on the App gold rush. Learn how to set up your business so that it works while you don't, and turn a simple idea into a passive revenue stream.
Discover marketing strategies that few developers know and/or use Learn the success formula for getting thousands of downloads a day for one App Learn the secret to why some Apps get visibility while others don't Get insights to help you understand the App store marketApp Empire delivers advice on the most essential things you must do in order to achieve success with an app. Turn your simple app idea into cash flow today!
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, small-business owner, intrapreneur, or not-for-profit leader, there's no shortage of advice on topics such as innovating, recruiting, fund raising, and branding. In fact, there are so many books, articles, websites, blogs, webinars, and conferences that many startups get paralyzed, or they focus on the wrong priorities and go broke before they succeed.
The Art of the Start 2.0 solves that problem by distilling Guy Kawasaki's decades of experience as one of the most hardworking and irreverent strategists in the business world. Guy has totally overhauled this iconic, essential guide for anyone starting anything. It’s 64 percent longer than version 1.0 and features his latest insights and practical advice about social media, crowdfunding, cloud computing, and many other topics.
Guy understands the seismic changes in business over the last decade: Once-invulnerable market leaders are struggling. Many of the basics of getting established have become easier, cheaper, and more democratic. Business plans are no longer necessary. Social media has replaced PR and advertising as the key method of promotion. Crowdfunding is now a viable alternative to investors. The cloud makes basic infrastructure affordable for almost any new venture.
The Art of the Start 2.0 will show you how to effectively deploy all these new tools. And it will help you master the fundamental challenges that have not changed: building a strong team, creating an awesome product or service, and facing down your competition.
As Guy likes to say, “Entrepreneur is a state of mind, not a job title.” His book will help you make your crazy ideas stick, through an adventure that's more art than science – the art of the start.
At just eighteen years old, Matt Morris founded his first marketing business. At twenty, he dropped out of college to pursue business full-time. At twenty-one, he was homeless and deeply in debt, living out of his car. It was then that he made a life-changing decision to re-invent himself and his career. By twenty-nine, Matt was a self-made millionaire. How did he do it?
In The Unemployed Millionaire, Morris reveals how he turned his life around and shatters the myth that it takes money to make money. Thanks to the Internet explosion and the ease of global trade, it is possible for anyone to start a business and market their products worldwide to millions of customers. Here, Morris unlocks the secrets and provides you with the specific moneymaking formula he used to turn his ideas into a fortune.
Equips you with a step-by-step formula for turning your great idea into a million-dollar business in as little as twelve months Proves you don’t have to be smart, lucky, or rich to make millions Gives you the specific success principles all millionaires follow Author Matt Morris is an internationally recognized speaker who selectively mentors other entrepreneurs, traveling the world, working very little, and earning millions in the process With a foreword by Les Brown, motivational speaker, bestselling author, and television personalityIf you're serious about earning millions without working your fingers to the bone, The Unemployed Millionaire gives you the powerful strategies needed to turn your dreams into a reality.
Richard Branson is an iconic entrepreneur and the founder of Virgin Airways, Virgin Records, and many other Virgin businesses around the world. Now he shares the inside track on his life in business and reveals the incredible truth about his most risky, brilliant, and audacious deals. Combining invaluable advice with remarkable, and candid stories of Virgin's greatest achievements, as well as some of its setbacks, this is a dynamic, inspirational, and truly original guide.
Whether you are an executive, an entrepreneur, or are just starting out, Branson strips business down to show how you can succeed and make a difference.
"The pick of 2014's management books." –Andrew Hill, Financial Times
"One of the top business books of the year." –Harvey Schacter, The Globe and Mail
Bestselling author, Robert Sutton and Stanford colleague, Huggy Rao tackle a challenge that determines every organization’s success: how to scale up farther, faster, and more effectively as an organization grows.
Sutton and Rao have devoted much of the last decade to uncovering what it takes to build and uncover pockets of exemplary performance, to help spread them, and to keep recharging organizations with ever better work practices. Drawing on inside accounts and case studies and academic research from a wealth of industries-- including start-ups, pharmaceuticals, airlines, retail, financial services, high-tech, education, non-profits, government, and healthcare-- Sutton and Rao identify the key scaling challenges that confront every organization. They tackle the difficult trade-offs that organizations must make between whether to encourage individualized approaches tailored to local needs or to replicate the same practices and customs as an organization or program expands. They reveal how the best leaders and teams develop, spread, and instill the right mindsets in their people-- rather than ruining or watering down the very things that have fueled successful growth in the past. They unpack the principles that help to cascade excellence throughout an organization, as well as show how to eliminate destructive beliefs and behaviors that will hold them back.
Scaling Up Excellence is the first major business book devoted to this universal and vexing challenge and it is destined to become the standard bearer in the field.
Drawing on their work training tens of thousands of people at leading organizations worldwide, the authors provide a deep understanding of the basics of financial management and measurement, along with hands-on activities to practice what you are reading. You'll discover:
Why the assumptions behind financial data matter
- What income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements really reveal
- How to use ratios to assess your venture's financial health
- How to calculate return on your investments in your enterprise
- Ways to use financial information to do your own job better
- How to instill financial intelligence throughout your team
Authoritative and accessible, Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs empowers you to "talk numbers" confidently with colleagues, partners, and employees-- and fully understand how to use financial data to make better decisions for your business.
Through stories of young entrepreneurs who have started businesses, this book illustrates how to turn hobbies, skills, and interests into profit-making ventures. Mariotti describes the characteristics of the successful entrepreneur and covers the nuts and bolts of getting a business up, running and successful.
Network marketing is one of the fastest-growing career opportunities in the United States. Millions of people just like you have abandoned dead-end jobs for the chance to achieve the dream of growing their own businesses. What many of them find, however, is that the first year in network marketing is often the most challenging—and, for some, the most discouraging.
Here, Mark Yarnell and Rene Reid Yarnell, two of the industry's most respected and successful professionals, offer you strategies on how to overcome those first-year obstacles and position yourself for lifelong success. The Yarnells provide you with a wealth of savvy advice on everything you need to know to succeed in network marketing, such as proven systems for recruiting, training, growing and supporting your downline, and much more.
In an easy, step-by-step approach, you will learn how to:
·Deal with rejection
·Recruit and train
·Avoid overmanaging your downline
·Remain focused
·Stay enthusiastic
·Avoid unrealistic expectations
·Conduct those in-home meetings
·Ease out of another profession
You owe it to yourself to read this inspiring book!
"This will be the Bible of Network Marketing."
— Doug Wead, former special assistant to the president, the Bush Administration
From the Trade Paperback edition.
You don't have to quit your current job, or already have piles of money, or be 24 years old, or riding a booming economy, in order to start a successful online business.
The Six-Figure Second Income explains how to start or grow a business even when you think you have plenty of strikes against you.
In the course of building an eight-figure real estate information marketing business, David Lindahl and Jonathan Rozek tested dozens of tools and techniques. This book is centered around principles they derived from all the tests they ran, tools they used, and money they spent.
If you're tired of the gimmicks and skepticism that anyone can really succeed online, this book will give you the no-hype, no-nonsense advice you need.
And just how easy can it be? One entrepreneur took the concept of the ballpoint pen and refined it into a mulimillion-dollar idea: roll-on deodorant. Fred Smith of Federal Express took the methods that banks use for clearing checks to develop an overnight delivery company that has revolutionized the way we do business. Now, what have you seen-- or are going to see-- that you could take and turn to your advantage?
In Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition, the program focuses on helping you spot the hidden assets, overlooked opportunities, and untapped resources around you, and gives you, and gives you fresh eyes with which to see and capitalize on them. You'll also learn how to adapt and apply these tools to your unique circumstances to maximize your income, influence, power, and success.
Uber. Airbnb. Amazon. Apple. PayPal. All of these companies disrupted their markets when they launched. Today they are industry leaders. What’s the secret to their success?
These cutting-edge businesses are built on platforms: two-sided markets that are revolutionizing the way we do business. Written by three of the most sought-after experts on platform businesses, Platform Revolution is the first authoritative, fact-based book on platform models. Whether platforms are connecting sellers and buyers, hosts and visitors, or drivers with people who need a ride, Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary reveal the what, how, and why of this revolution and provide the first “owner’s manual” for creating a successful platform business.
Platform Revolution teaches newcomers how to start and run a successful platform business, explaining ways to identify prime markets and monetize networks. Addressing current business leaders, the authors reveal strategies behind some of today’s up-and-coming platforms, such as Tinder and SkillShare, and explain how traditional companies can adapt in a changing marketplace. The authors also cover essential issues concerning security, regulation, and consumer trust, while examining markets that may be ripe for a platform revolution, including healthcare, education, and energy.
As digital networks increase in ubiquity, businesses that do a better job of harnessing the power of the platform will win. An indispensable guide, Platform Revolution charts out the brilliant future of platforms and reveals how they will irrevocably alter the lives and careers of millions.
With zero experience and no capital, Miki Agrawal opened WILD, a farm-to-table pizzeria in New York City and Las Vegas, partnered up in a children's multimedia company called Super Sprowtz, and launched a patented high-tech underwear business called THINX.
Miki has seen significant growth in her businesses. She pulls back the curtain of how you can live out loud, honor your hunches, and leave nothing on the table.
Whether you’re a student with big aspirations or an experienced professional looking for new opportunities, Do Cool Sh*t will open your eyes, make you laugh, and give you the confidence to quit your day job, start your own business, and live happily ever after.
Do Cool Sh*t features a foreword by Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos.
Food trucks have become a wildly popular and important part of the hospitality industry. Consumers are flocking to these mobile food businesses in droves, inspiring national food truck competitions and even a show dedicated to the topic on The Food Network. The relatively low cost of entry as compared to starting a restaurant, combined with free and low-cost ways to market them to the masses via platforms like social media, are just two of the reasons that food truck business are drawing in budding entrepreneurs.
Author David Weber, a food truck advocate and entrepreneur himself, is here to offer his practical, step-by-step advice to achieving your mobile food mogul dreams in The Food Truck Handbook. This book cuts through all of the hype to give both hopeful entrepreneurs and already established truck owners an accurate portrayal of life on the streets. From concept to gaining a loyal following to preventative maintenance on your equipment this book covers it all.
Includes profiles of successful food trucks, detailing their operations, profitability, and scalability. Establish best practices for operating your truck using one-of-a-kind templates for choosing vending locations, opening checklist, closing checklist, and more. Create a sound business plan complete with a reasonable budget and finding vendors you can trust; consider daily operations in detail from start to finish, and ultimately expand your business. Stay lean and profitable by avoiding the most common operating mistakes. Author David Weber is Founder and President of the NYC Food Truck Association (NYCFTA), which brings together small businesses that own and operate premium food trucks in NYC focused on innovation in hospitality, high quality food, and community development.
Starting with nothing more than a home brewing kit, Sam Calagione turned his entrepreneurial dream into a foamy reality in the form of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, one of America's best and fastest growing craft breweries.
In this newly updated Second Edition, Calagione offers a deeper real-world look at entrepreneurship and what it takes to operate and grow a successful business. In several new chapters, he discusses Dogfish's most innovative marketing ideas, including how social media has become an integral part of the business model and how other small businesses can use it to catch up with bigger competitors. Calagione also presents a compelling argument for choosing to keep his business small and artisanal, despite growing demand for his products.
Updated to offer a more complete look at what it takes to keep a small business booming An inspiring story of renegade entrepreneurialism and the rewards of dreaming big, working hard, and thinking unconventionally Shows how to use social media to reach new customers and grow a businessFor any entrepreneur with a dream, Brewing Up a Business, Second Edition presents an enlightening, in-depth look at what it takes to succeed on their own terms.
In a world where you can no longer plan or predict your way to success, how can you achieve your most important goals? It’s a daunting question. But in today’s environment, where change is the only constant, it’s a question everyone must answer. This is true whether you are an innovator or an entrepreneur, a manager or a newly minted graduate.
The first step, say the authors of this book, is this: “Just start.” In other words, take action now and learn as you go.
Written by a trio of seasoned business leaders, Just Start combines fascinating research with proven practices to deliver a reliable method for helping you advance toward your goals—despite the uncertainty that is all too common today. Babson College President Leonard Schlesinger, organizational learning expert Charles Kiefer, and veteran journalist Paul B. Brown share their own deep and varied experiences and draw from a source where striving amid constant uncertainty actually works: the world of serial entrepreneurship. In this world, people don’t just think differently—they act differently, as well.
Using this novel approach, Just Start will help you:
• Determine the best strategy and tactics when the future is uncertain
• Minimize financial risk in every decision you make
• Attract like-minded people to what you want to do (and learn why this is important)
• Understand why “Act. Learn. Build (so you can) Act again” is the best course of action when facing the unknown
So throw out your forecasting tools and shrug off that nagging frustration that comes with constant uncertainty. Just Start distills for you the very essence of what makes people successful in today’s volatile environment. This book is your guide to achieving your goals—whether your project is professional or personal, or somewhere in between.
Looking for a better way to say "authentic?" Words That Sell gives you 57 alternatives. How about "appealing?" Take your pick from 76 synonyms. You'll even find more than 100 variations on "exciting." Fully updated and expanded, this edition of the copywriting classic is packed with inspiration-on-demand for busy professionals who need to win customers--by mail, online, or in person.
More than 75 lists of powerful and persuasive words and phrases, including 21 new lists for this edition Cross-referencing of categories to jump-start creative thinking A crash course in basic copywriting techniques Helpful lists of commonly misspelled words, confusing words, pretentious phrases to avoid, and moreRoget's is fine for writing term papers and letters to the editor, but when it comes to the business of writing copy that translates into sales, there is no substitute for Words That Sell.
Find the perfect words and phrases to win over customers
Grabbers that get attention:
No-risk offer * One day only! * No strings attached! * What have you got to lose? * All the right ingredients * Inside information * Do you enjoy...? * Leap into...
Descriptions and benefits that create appeal:
Irresistible * winning * zesty * huggable * satisfying * You'll fall in love with...* Your ticket to... * king-size * Gives you the power * baby-soft *
Clinchers to win over your customer:
Reap the benefits today * Don't miss out! * No risk now, no risk later! * You can do it!* You be the judge * Send for our free catalog * 100% satisfaction guarantee
Special strategies that seal the deal:
Five-star quality * You're worth it * Don't fall for... * We make life easier * You're one of a select few... * discriminating * Your thoughtful gift
Known for his honesty, integrity and powers of persuasion, Herjavec never fails to reach for the highest rung on the ladder. In The Will to Win, he shares some of his own secrets for greatness, whether it’s knowing when to be aggressive (and when not to be), when to talk and when to listen, or when and how to ask the right questions. And he reminds us that we all have the same 24 hours a day in which to maximize our future—it’s how we spend those hours that counts.
Whether you are seeking to build the next big communications technology company, become the most respected teacher in your education system or make a lasting impact as an artist in your field, the most important decision you can make, according to Herjavec, is to reject mediocrity. Drawing on anecdotes from his own life and from the lives of celebrity friends such as Oprah, Georges St-Pierre and Celine Dion, he delivers valuable lessons that will guide readers to greater happiness and success.
THE GOOGLE STORY is the definitive account of the populist media company powered by the world’s most advanced technology that in a few short years has revolutionized access to information about everything for everybody everywhere.
In 1998, Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, in their own words, “change the world” through a search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free.
While the company has done exactly that in more than one hundred languages, Google’s quest continues as it seeks to add millions of library books, television broadcasts, and more to its searchable database.
Readers will learn about the amazing business acumen and computer wizardry that started the company on its astonishing course; the secret network of computers delivering lightning-fast search results; the unorthodox approach that has enabled it to challenge Microsoft’s dominance and shake up Wall Street. Even as it rides high, Google wrestles with difficult choices that will enable it to continue expanding while sustaining the guiding vision of its founders’ mantra: DO NO EVIL."
From the Hardcover edition.
Weddings, graduations, birthday parties, anniversaries, and conferences—what do these all have in common? Everyone would rather hire someone else to plan and run them! That someone can be you.
Take your passion for event planning to the next level with in-the-trenches advice and tools you need to start, run, and grow a successful business. From writing a solid contract to finding reliable vendors, our experts help you identify your niche, teach you how to scout potential clients, evaluate the competition, market your business, and more.
Discover how to:
Identify a niche and establish yourself within the industry
Build a loyal customer base for large and small events
Implement targeted strategies for planning commercial, political, civic, social events, and more
Promote your business, events, and yourself with Pinterest, Instagram, and other social and online marketing tools
Develop proposals, vendor agreements, contracts, and manage day-to-day operations and costs
Keep within budget using money-saving tips and industry-tested ideas
Plus, gain valuable insights from interviews with practicing event planners, and stay on track with checklists, worksheets, and other resources.
Everything you need to make your event planning business a successful reality is right here—get the party started today!
Covers all three phases of the start-up to scale-up process, developed with reader feedback from "one of the more unusual ebook...experiments of the year" (ThinReads)
Wharton professor Ian C. MacMillan and Dr. James Thompson, director of the Wharton Social Entrepreneurship Program, provide a tough-love approach that significantly increases the likelihood of a successful social enterprise launch in the face of the high-uncertainty conditions typically encountered by social entrepreneurs.
MacMillan and Thompson used their own systematic framework to publish The Social Entrepreneur's Playbook. To test the market, they offered the first phase in their start-up method (step 1) as a free ebook. Readers were invited to join The Social Entrepreneur's Advisory Group, and nearly 300 aspiring and active social entrepreneurs shared feedback that helped shape the complete edition of the book, which covers all three steps in the start-up to scale-up process.
Based on this crowd-sourced feedback from readers of the free ebook and drawing on the authors' more than 26 years' combined experience developing and studying social enterprises in the field across Africa and in the United States, this new edition provides guidance for each phase:
Phase One: Pressure Test Your Start-Up Idea. Based on the free ebook, this expanded section now includes advice on setting revenue and social impact goals, how to navigate the sociopolitical landscape, and how to develop a strong concept statement. In addition, MacMillan and Thompson provide advice on how to identify and test a proposed revenue-generating solution and define and segment your target population.
Phase Two: Plan Your Social Enterprise. All new to this edition, this critical phase shows you how to frame and scope the venture, determine what it will take to actually deliver a sustainable enterprise, identify the key assumptions that have been made, and design checkpoints to test those assumptions before making major investments.
Phase Three: Launch and Scale Your Social Enterprise. Available for the first time in this edition, you will learn how to effectively launch your enterprise, manage upside potential and downside risk, and strategically scale up.
Filled with accessible frameworks and tools, as well as inspiring stories of social entrepreneurs, The Social Entrepreneur's Playbook is a must-read for any aspiring or active social entrepreneur, as well as philanthropists, foundations, and nonprofits interested in doing more good with fewer resources.
Includes access to downloadable planning documents, including user-friendly spreadsheets
Through pure happenstance, Owen finds himself pondering this problem while advancing steadily as a contestant at the World Series of Poker. His Las Vegas path quickly introduces him to Samantha, a beautiful and mysterious mentor with a revolutionary approach to entrepreneurship. Sam is a fountain of knowledge that may save his company, but her sexual advances might prove too much for Owen's struggling marriage.
All In Startup is more than just a novel about eschewing temptation and fighting to save a company. It is a lifeline for entrepreneurs who are thinking about launching a new idea or for those who have already started but can't seem to generate the traction they were expecting.
Entrepreneurs who achieve success in the new economy do so using a new "scientific method" of innovation. All In Startup demonstrates why four counterintuitive principles separate successful entrepreneurs from the wanna-preneurs who bounce from idea to idea, unable to generate real revenue.
You will likely get only one opportunity in your life to go "all in" in on an idea: to quit your job, talk your spouse into letting you drain the savings account, and follow your dream. All In Startup will prepare you for that "all in" moment and make sure that you push your chips into the middle only when the odds are in your favor. This book holds the keys to significantly de-risking your idea so that your success appears almost lucky.
Join Owen and Sam for this one-of-a-kind journey that will set you on the right path for when it's your turn to put everything on the line.