Entrepreneur

Rob Ryan knows what he is talking about. His style is free of fluff, full of useful real-life examples and very much to the point. He walks you through all the essentials of building a viable business and gives you extremely practical checklists for each stage.

Here are some of the questions you will find an answer to: What are the core values of an entrepreneur? How do you measure up? When are you ready to talk to venture capitalists? How to think about your business idea? How to find out if you will have customers? When to approach them and how to talk to them? How to test your new product? How to grow your business? How to differentiate from your competition? How to blow away your competition? ...and many more.

Keep in mind, though, that this book is written for technology entrepreneurs and may not be equally applicable for every industry. As for myself, this book immediately claimed a prominent place in my library and I am using it very frequently.

Conclusion: Buy this one; you will not be disappointed!

Rob Ryan's book provides excellent insights and practical guidelines on how to win in the bullring of high-tech start-ups and entrepreneurship. The seven chapters discuss the major methodologies and lessons learned in preparing, executing, and living in a start-up company. Ryan uses his personal experiences as chairman, board member and mentor to script the art of crafting a successful enterprise. Ryan's major entrepreneurial success was harvested at Ascend Communications which he founded and chaired as a start-up in 1989, and was subsequently acquired by Lucent Technologies for approximately $25 billion in 1999.

The main themes are developed through understanding the true value proposition of the start-up, which includes reviewing the revenue generation possibilities, customer interest and competitive forces. Ryan's Sunflower Model is used to understand the ways in which the core competencies can be leveraged into new revenue generating areas. These are used as the foundation in building the business model and business plan, which are then used in approaching venture capitalists.

There is a kaleidoscope of useful practical examples from how to script a succinct and powerful executive summary, business plan and board meeting slides. The chapters are linked with practical examples of Ryan's start-ups, their trials, challenges and many successes.

The practical lessons were very useful to me as they provide the key insights that the entrepreneur is looking for. The book does not labor over theoretical propositions, but rather provides illuminating and tried and tested real life frameworks and guidance. The book will be beneficial for any start-up entrepreneur, business school student, corporate leader and manager -and the person who has always walked around with that one great idea that they have always wanted to deploy.

This is a 'must read' and luminaries such as Craig Barrett (CEO of Intel), Ken Siebel (MD of U.S. Trust Company) and Prof. David BenDaniel (Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Johnson Graduate Scholl of Business, Cornell University) have penned praise for this book.

A synopsis of the book: "Chapter 1 - Which Wanna-Be Are You?" focuses on analyzing the entrepreneur's and Entrepreneurial Team Profile'. This analyses the main types of entrepreneurial teams and their respective motivations and goals.

"Chapter 2 - Do the Dogs Like the Dog Food?" focuses on the fundamental question, which asks if customers really, really like and need what you are offering and reviews the detailed value proposition.

"Chapter 3 - The Sunflower Model" outlines the company's core competency and the possible ways to leverage that core into new revenue generating areas.

"Chapter 4 - The Keys to The Goldmine" concentrates on the key questions to answer in building a solid business and focuses on the value proposition, differentiation, scaling and the ability to entrench your company within the client site.

"Chapter 5 - Peeing In The Wells" gives an annotated example of a winning business presentation and executive summary, and discusses the approaches in approaching the venture capitalist.

"Chapter 6 - Sucking the Air out of the Room" is all about how you become Number One and stay Number One. It will tell you how to make selling against your company a nightmare.

"Chapter 7 - You've Got Money, Now What?" guides start-ups on how to manage operations, hiring personnel, and the management board.

If you are an entrepreneur. Do not do anything before reaqding this book. It is easy to read and understand... No business jargons or anything...

Dr. Moore's Careerpreneurs...is an outstanding, clearly written treasury of information. The author interviewed over 100 women entrepreneurs--most of whom have been recognized for their achievements by organizations such as Working Women, the National Association of Women Business Owners, Al Gore's Hammer Award, Crain's Award, and as Entrepreneur of the Year in their city and state--to provide a realistic picture of how transitions can lead to a challenging and rewarding career. Using the women's voices and documented research studies, Dr. Moore provides a roadmap for successfully navigating one's career and thus offers a valuable resource for all professional women.

Each chapter is designed to provide personal insight on successful careerbuilding strategies including transitions, leadership and management style, and negotitating techniques. Many of the chapters include self-assessment exercises (e.g., entrepreneurial style, strategies for coping with conflict), and guidelines for handling specific situations (e.g., designing a transition strategy, a four-step plan to analyze the financial feasibility of starting a business).

This is a book that will be useful to organizational women, to those considering entrepreneurship, just starting out or for those without a mentor. The book serves as a valuable reference guide and you will find yourself returning to it time and again as you meet new challenges in growing and developing your career. For more established entrepreneurs, it will spark ideas on new ways to do business and cause you to re-examine and re-think current strategies that may be holding you back from further expansion. You'll finding the chapter on "Growth, Transition and Success" to be especially helpful.

Moreover, the book is inspirational as it contains honest accounts of how these women struggled and overcame barriers to achieve success. The scenarios in the book provide snapshots of the vaired roads to success. Among the role models you will meet are Suzy Spafford, CEO of Suzy's Zoo greeting cards and stationery, and Deborah Szekely, founder of Rancho La Puerta, the Golden Door, and Eureka Communities. If you want to break the glass ceiling and follow your passion, this book will provide the guidance, information, and inspiration you need.

I read Dr. Moore's book a year ago as I started my business as a female entrepreneur, and now a year later I re-read it- and find all the lessons even more relevant and helpful. Any woman considering starting her own business should read this book several times. I have learned quite a bit over the last year, and Dr. Moore's book tremendously helped reduce my learning curve (not that it's been easy).

As a self- employed consultant focusing on women's leadership, I have found especially useful the author's pointers on negotiation, how to invest my time, and how to make the most of my networking resources. Her real-life examples and advice from successful female entrepreneurs and their stories is most inspiring and a continuing source of strength for me. My business has continued to grow, and I truly appreciate the opportunity to have learned from the other entrepreneurial women in this book.

Finding a method of being a mother first and working to provide income rather than slaving to provide a meager income and also having children would be useful to most women (and probably favored by men). As yet, the priority problem between children and working has been solved by so few except those who can afford child care and cleaning help, that most of women's entrepreneurship - including professional employment - is lost in translation! Hopefully this book can help. For men to conclude that women are more than women-children would also help despite the fact that most don't want to be men, contrary to Freud, and those that fantasize over him and his views.

I purchased a new copy of this book back in 1986. It has to be one of the best books ever written regarding business start-ups. I guardedly loaned the book to friends over the years and eventually LOST this valuable resource. After searching for some time (plus sending some company wide e-mail pleas) I purchased an excellent condition copy from a seller on AMAZON. Later, to my delight, the LOST copy magically reappeared on my desk! I now have my original, with 16 years of hand written notes in the margins, plus a "clean" copy. Every entrepreneur should be so lucky. If you are new to starting a business, desire business structure skills, need sales technique review, or just want some business related inspiration, this book is for you.

This is by far the very best book that has ever been written for budding entreprenuers. If you find a rare copy of this book, you will keep it within reaching distance for years to come. Even though it was written in 1977, don't shy away. Over 99% of the information is still viable in today's business world. The information contained here will help you to look at the world of business a little differently. It is a shame that Mr. White did not follow-up on this book.

I lost the book when a potential business partner decided he needed the book more than I did. It took me years to find another copy. Protect this book the way you would protect your wallet.

I have 5 copies of this book! I first picked this book up and read it in 1982 while in college. Some years later I saw this book on a client's office bookshelf...that company was later acquired with a big payoff for this VP. I reread it in 1994 when I spun off my own consulting practice. I have used so many of the tools in the book, they are a big part of my business repertoire. Anyways, I quickly switched over to a niche I found using the Market Gap Analysis (in the book)...raised $18MM over 2 years and the company was acquired for a decent harvest in year 3. If you have the desire and perseverence and follow this book closely, you WILL exceed your dreams.

Don't be deterred by the title and subtitle, nor by the sometimes overheated diction. (Initially, I was.) This book provides an abundance of practical strategies, tactics, and suggestions which can be of invaluable assistance to males as well as to females, to corporate marketing executives as well as to entrepreneurs. Without apologies, Ross has an in-your-face style. She wastes neither her time nor her reader's in getting to the point, nailing it, and then moving on to another point.

She organizes the material within six Parts:

I. Empowering Marketing Maneuvers

II. Illuminating Publicity Techniques for Femme Fatales and Grande Dames

Note: As I previously suggested, ignore the overheated diction.

III. "Out of the Box" Thinking -- Nontraditional Marketing

IV. Mission Possible -- Unstoppable Direct Marketing

V. Maximize Your Strengths -- More Gutsy Strategies for Wonder Women

NOTE: See previous "Note."

VI. Sources & Resources Packed With More Power Than a Protein Bar

She also includes a "Recommended Reading" section. Because other excellent books have been published since 2000, I presume to suggest several at the conclusion of this review.

Ross obviously favors a tone and diction in her writing which could perhaps (just perhaps) distract some readers from the fundamentally sound material she provides. She may seem playful at time but she is nonetheless quite serious about the importance of combining prudent speed with relentless determination to achieve what Jim Collins calls a BEHAG: a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Only in recent years have women somehow overcome formidable barriers to achieve success in the business world, most of which were installed and then sustained by men. Today, at least 80% (and probably more) of the growth our nation's GNP has been achieved by companies with 20 or fewer employees and a substantial majority of those companies are owned by women.

This book will be of substantial benefit to those women but also to other women who need both encouragement and guidance, either to join the ranks of company owners or to expedite the progress of their careers within other organizations. I am also convinced that this book will be of substantial benefit to other entrepreneurs, male or female, who also need such encouragement and guidance. I urge those who share my high regard for this book to check out the Customer Reviews of the works identified by Ross in the "Recommended Reading" section.

Here are other works which should also be seriously considered: Beemer's Predatory Marketing, Catalyst's Advancing Women in Business, Jennings and Haughton's It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It Is the Fast That Eat the Slow, Glaser and Smalley's Swim with the Dolphins, Kawasaki's Selling the Dream, Landrum's Profiles of Female Genius, Morgan's Eating the Big Fish, Breaking the Glass Ceiling co-edited by Morrison, White, and Van Elsor, Swiss's Women Breaking Through, Taylor and Archer's Up Against the Wal-Marts, and Wymard's Conversations with Uncommon Women. Amazon.com features Customer Reviews of these works also.

Best $20 you'll spend this year on growing your business. Incredibly up-to-date marketing power plays like: "Niches spell riches" "Kick yourself in the assets" "Syndicated columnists = instant stardom" "Booking radio talk shows because you're the expert" "Get in catalogs - there are several that sell to your target market" Don't pass up this book if you are interested in the wisdom of one of the greatest entrepreneurs and authors of our time - Marilyn Ross. These techniques are fun, easy and quickly REWARDING.

Great book. I never write reviews, but it was so good I was compelled to write this. Great ideas, not too advanced, not too simplistic.

Great copy looks so easy -- so simple, so effortless, so "ordinary." There are those who can take the process of writing it and make that process look complicated. And then there's Joe Sugarman.

This is one of the two books I recommend for further study in my home-study "Money-Making Copywriting Course." Why? Because Joe cuts through all of the needless and cumbersome detail so many teachers of copywriting instill in their lessons. He makes the information accessible and entertaining to learn. And he's a super-successful real-world practioner, as well as a very skilled and effective teacher.

A novice might think that because this book does not refer to Internet marketing or the latest trends in print and direct mail advertising, it is out of date. That is a well-intentioned but misguided criticism. Of course very few people know how to market effectively (and close sales) on the Internet. Since I have done this successfully (I've created Web sites that made lots of money, by themselves) and since I spent a year as the editor of a newsletter tracking who was successful marketing online and who wasn't (almost everyone wasn't), I can say with some authority that there are very few people who can market effectively online.

But know this about Joe Sugarman. If he ever chose to do online marketing, he would make a fortune -- just as he has done before in other ventures. Why? Because there are certain principles of human nature, and of selling with the written word, that have not yet changed. And he is a world-class expert in conveying those principles to novices and experts alike.

The technological and situational landscape may make it look like we live in a very different world, but trust me -- as someone who got a 2% response with direct mail at the height of the anthrax scare in the fall of 2001 -- the world we live in now is pretty much the same as the world we have always lived in.

At least as it pertains to writing effective advertising copy.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. You'll learn tons, and -- best of all -- you'll be able to make some very good money with what you learned.

I own $4,200 worth of Books and courses on Advertising and this book is on my list of top 20 must read. A lot of valuable insights not covered by others! Helps you avoid some of the biggest and most common mistakes in writing ads and sales letters that almost guarantee a Bomb. Covers emotions and reasons why people buy and don't buy. This book is worth $250.00 or more. It's a virtual course. Sugarman has sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products and knows what he is talking about. Sugarman makes almost nothing off teaching others what he knows. I think he teaches because he enjoys it and not to make money. His money has come through selling products in space ads and television, and not from teaching others how to sell through space ads or television. A lot of so called experts make there money teaching others how to make money teaching others how to make money. Sugarman made his millions selling products to the public! Get this book! Its fun to read and its Great!

On a scale of 1 to 10, this book is a 20. Truly the ultimate course on copywriting. My library is filled with books on how to write advertising copy. My shelves brim with books by Gary Halbert, Jay Abraham, John Carlton, John Caples, Brian Keith Voiles, Michael Masterson, and many other outstanding, top-notch copywriters. Joe Sugarman's Advertising Secrets of the Written Word is my all-time favorite. The absolute best book on the subject, period.

When I first saw this book, my heart did not exactly skip a beat. Another book about (and worse, BY!) 2 American entrepreneurs selling computer mice? Haven't publishers had enough of all these human interest business stories that all share the same beginnings and endings?

I decided to give the book a go anyway since it was a gift from a friend. Surprisingly, I was unable to put it down. Even though I am an Asian doing my MBA in Europe, I believe the experiences of the authors hold true for all aspiring entrepreneurs.

And what experiences! I won't give the story away (go to mousedriver.com and look at their Insider newsletter for a summary of some of their tales),but DO consider this book to get an idea of what it means to passionately believe in a product, get that product to the market -- and how to deal with all the obstacles in the way while preserving your sanity and bank balances.

If, like me, you have thoughts about being an entrepreneur but are not sure of what to start being passionate about, read this book and "Just Drive It" ! The marketing slogan for the MouseDriver (that's what these guys are trying to sell, a mouse that is shaped like a golf club) is certainly effective shorthand for all those who have always THOUGHT about being their own boss but have have not dared to fall out of their 8 to 8 routines (Worry about the landing later:-)

MouseDriver Chronicles is a true, compelling story that deserves a wider audience. I now understand why my friend (who gave me the book) actually went on to help publish it. Happy AND educational endings, anyone?

Ok, so here's the deal. I currently manage about $20MM in retail business for a manufacturer, and have been contemplating whether to pursue an MBA (read Wharton) or start a company. This book provided a pretty no-pretense look at starting a product-based company. In many cases the author's MBA's weren't that valuable (their words, not mine). Ultimately, this book served to help demystify the process of starting a company. While not a "how-to" book, I can say that it has been one of the most beneficial books in providing 1) a realistic view of the start-up process, and 2) a realistic view on the benefit of an MBA in starting a company. My own personal conclusion is that industry experience seems to count for far more than an MBA (assuming, of course, and undergrad in Business Mgmt or business knowledge from experience).

Thanks, guys, for daring to share your victories, setbacks, and experiences with us in a transparent and unpretentious manner. I can't tell you how beneficial this book has been in my own decision to take the plunge.

The twenty bucks invested in this book may be the best start-up investment you can make. By the way, they really do reply if you email them. I received replies from both John & Kyle within a few days of asking for their input. God bless.

Having stumbled accross this book amidst the deluge that is my local book store, i soon realised that i had stumbled accross something very inspirational indeed. As a Business school graduate myself, i was entering this game with a somewhat over-confident approach to business startup! Boy oh boy has this read tought me a thing or three! I don't want to rabble on and on about how good the book is, but i would just like to add one thing. The experiences of John and Kyle (the entrepreneurs) have brought me back down to earth and have re-ignited my creative spark as i am now thinking of ways to avoid getting myself in the dificult situations they often found themselves in . Also of ways i could get in similar positive situations they found themselves in. Oh, just go and buy it, steal it, borrow it from your friend or find a way to get your hands on it-entrepreneurs you will not regret it!

I'm sorry but the reviews of this book seem too good to be true. Please someone criticize the book!

If you want to ignite your idea and launch it into a thriving business, read this book. Romanus Wolter gives you the steps and the confidence to turn your passion into reality. You don't need an MBA, but you do need "Kick Start Your Dream Business."

I love how he points out that you should not hesitate to tap the ideas and services of your friends, family and colleagues who are thrilled to help you get started. You just need to ask. You have many people by your side who will support you with your dream. You don't have to do it all by yourself.

Before reading "Kick Start Your Dream Business" I had been struggling with the challenge of bringing my new business idea to life. I found myself on a circuitous path of asking people for advice, bumping into walls, retracing my steps, constantly changing my strategies and basically wasting precious time. This book helped me focus my process with very practical advice, while Romanus Wolter's own obvious exuberance and energy filled me with a renewed joy and motivation for turning my dream business into a reality. I'm sure I'm not the first to say that I wish I could have read this book earlier. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who is trying to sort through the how-to's of getting a dream business off the ground.

I found this book hard to grade, but easy to read. Stories are the best way for people to learn, and this book has six interesting ones (about Josiah Wedgwood, H.J. Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, Howard Schultz, and Michael Dell) describing entrepreneurs pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to create major brands. As a book of engaging business stories, this is a five star book. In terms of the insight you will get from these stories compared to the potential insight you should get, this is a three-star book. I compromised the two to come up with my grading.

If you want to learn about today's brand-building challenges, other books handle that subject much better. If you want to learn about how the Wedgwood, H.J. Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, Starbucks, and Dell businesses got started, this is your book. The material is handled much like historical fiction (except the facts are meticulously gathered and documented), and you will find the going easy and pleasant.

If you like Horatio Alger stories, you will find those here as well. I suspect that exhausted entrepreneurs on long plane trips where their computer batteries have run out will find this book helpful in recharging their personal batteries. As Winston Churchill once said, "Never give up." That's the key lesson here. Through trial and error, these entrepreneurs kept trying until they found formulas that worked.

The choice of examples is a little flawed. Five are consumer branding examples and only one is a business example (Dell). Of the consumer branding examples, you will find that most are about selling to the higher income people. That gets a little repetitive.

The explanation of the examples is also incomplete. Considering that this is a business book, there is relatively little financial information other than annual sales and occasional asset turnover ratios. Qualitative example are helpful, but they are more helpful with more pinning down. For example, when you see the profit margins that Wedgwood had, that explains a lot about why the company could afford such lavish promotions. Without similar information on Heinz, you wonder why he was so successful in making sales but went bankrupt. Presumably, he had low margins.

The photographs and maps in the book are a plus, and I enjoyed them very much. The book was printed on such high quality paper (similar to that used for diplomas) that the images are on the same paper as the text. This permits the book to have many more illustrations than similar-sized business books.

The point about earning trust in the book is easily explained. At the time when these entrepreneurs were getting started, their largest competitors usually provided poor quality products, sometimes had inappropriate brand images, often failed to offer decent guarantees, and typically acted in self-serving ways. Earning trust isn't too hard if others are scoundrels or incompetent. Above all, these entrepreneurs stood for decent human values, and got that point across in one-to-one situations. I'm not sure that point comes out clearly enough, even though it is certainly present in each example.

Those who think the Internet age is unique will find the comparisons to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England and the transportation improvements in the United States to be valuable contrasts. But each age brings its unique changes. Entrepreneurs should seek to grasp those changes, but also see what others have missed. I think that the Starbucks concept could have been successfully innovated in the late 1950s. It's just that no one did it then.

After you finish enjoying these stories, I suggest that you think about the values that your organization stands for. Are those values presented and delivered in ways that make your organization more trustworthy than any other? How else do you have to be superior in order to establish a burnished brand image?

Be serious about giving people the best you can possibly provide!

Did you know that in 1859 Americans consumed about eight pounds of coffee per year, per capita? Or that by 1939 it was fourteen pounds? If this is your cup of tea, then I think you will like this book. This is not a criticism, I liked the book because it looks at the growth in demand which was supplied by the entrepreneurs who formed the brands described in the book. Indeed this demand-side view is part of the book that made the biggest impact on me.
Some of this is obvious, but somewhat in the backround of our knowledge - "between 1860 and 1920 the population of the US grew from 31.5 to 107 million" - and some of this is well extracted in this book - e.g. "in 1844 (when Henry J. Heinz was born)less than 10% of American's lived in towns of greater than 2,500 population, 75 years later (when he died) 50% were urban dwellers and 20% lived in cities of greater than 250,000 people". Koehn builds up this demand side very well in each of the six cases she uses to illustrate who entrepreneurs build up branded business - Wedgwood , Heinz, Marshall-Fields, Estee Lauder, Starbucks and Dell.
Koehn, a Harvard business historian, is also quite good at showing how developing technology is put to use to serve this demand (or does it create it?) - "In 1830 it took three weeks to get calico from New York to Chicago, in 1860 it took three days, by 1880 ... less than 24 hours"
Again we all knew the importance of the railroad, but here its phrased in a way that makes sense of the dynamic growth and gentrification of the Mid West. She illustrates well the need that urbanisation created for prepared food that could be trusted and describes very well the increasing sophistication of industrial level food preparation - " by the 1860;s the introduction of calcium chloride to boiling water cut sterilization times from five hours to 25 minutes". She can even make innovations in canning technology sound exciting.

So much for the good stuff, I did find the tone of the descriptions of each entrepreneurs a bit fawning. Each had the feel of a business case, with the usual tone of awe and deference to the wit and wisdom of the main characters. With the exception of the Starbucks case - where Howard Shultz openly tells of his mistakes and wrong turnings - each case seems to highlight the wisdom of the main character, whereas it seems to me its their determination that marks them out, more than anything else. Henry Heinz went bankrupt three times in food products, before he became successful, Michael Dell was still seen as a cloner into the late 1980's.
Koehn makes no judgements about the more unpleasant side of this determination - Estee Lauder staged a meeting with the Duke of Windsor, which she had photographed and publicised, in order to make it appear she had high-society connections, Josiah Wedgwood supplied free gifts to royalty in the certain knowledge that the aspirations of the middle classes to emulate royalty would drive demand for this his products.
There are good insights into how these individuals drove modern marketing techniques - Wedgwood emphasized showrooms, Estee Lauder the free gift. And all had tremendous energy for customer service and production detail. However in each of the early cases we are told that 20th Century techniques were unknown to the industry " Brand marketing was virtually unheard of in the 18th Century" [ Wedgwood]; " Between 1869 and 1899, real per capita income increased at an annual compound rate of 2.1%. Henry Heinz had no access to these statistics. These numbers are based on economic concepts developed in the 20th Century". This kind of clumsiness crops up in each case, ok we get the point that these pioneers instinctively did something which is now solidified into great theory, but surely this point could be illustrated with more deftness.

This apart, a very useful and interesting book, a book for anyone interested in the general history of business. Some excellent details, too much fawning and praise too little criticism of the central characters who built the brands. A fascinating story.
If you liked this book, check out books by Arthur Chandler and John Drewer.

One final fact, Charles Darwin had the time and money to devote to his famous voyage on the Beagle - which laid the basis for the theory of Evolution - because his wife's grandfather was Joshua Wedgwood. Was this financial evolution at work?

This highly readable business book profiles six successful entrepreneurs from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Each profile (Josiah Wedgwood, Henry Heinz, Marshall Field, Estee Lauder, Howard Schultz, and Michael Dell) details the milieu of the era and offers insight into the environmental business factors that each of these business builders faced.

It is this holistic approach to the subject of each profile that makes the stories so compelling. Using her command of history, Ms. Koehn outlines the period view of each of the products (pickles to perfume) and vividly draws the reader into the strategy of each of these entrepreneurs' approach to the market and building their brand. It is the power of these stories that gives the brand message such import. All of these people had a great number of competitors in their market niche but their focussed approach to the brand associated with their goods or services is what set them apart.

Ms. Koehn uses some excellent demographic and financial information (indexed to today's dollars) that provide the backdrop for the scale of the success each of these entrepreneurs' achieved. This provides just enough quantitative information to provide texture without clouding the real story in statistics.

As an executive in the software business today, I found a great deal of comfort in the fact that the challenges I face in today's competitive marketplace are not new. In fact, with great courage and resolve, they have been solved again and again in differing but similar ways over centuries.

This is a great reference book, as well as a good source of technical business startup information. Not the sort of book for service companies, but if you are looking to start a software or hardware company, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU! I know I will be reading this again and again.

Great stuff Baird!

As a member of a start-up company, this is one of a select few books that I have found to be truly useful. Baird's writing style is both clear and pithy resulting in a book that conveys the essential concepts with a minimum of inconsequential verbiage.

In a bold marketing experiment, Professional Publications, Inc., has made available online at eysu.org the entire contents of this all-new 2003 2nd Edition of "Engineering Your Start-up." Every page is searchable in PDF files.
Michael Baird (co-author)

Have you ever thought your manager (or yourself) was missing some fundamentals in doing their job? The context of the book is primarily about running your own business. But truth be told, if you have any type of management or team leading role in your company, you are formally or informally charged with the responsibility of running some part of the business.

What I like most about this book, is that its easy to read and the personal experiences really nail the situation and topics presented. Forget about all those "Business Management" bestsellers, focus on getting your grass-roots first. Where better than to learn from the experiences of people who really run their business!

Delightful in its view of business. Remarkable in its organization. You can turn anywhere, start reading, and not feel like you missed the first 165 pages. The lessons are memorable. My favorite: "Every customer has a sword in one hand and a bag of gold in the other. When you have properly assessed customer risk, you will get the bag of gold without falling on the sword." This book should also be listed under motivational tools, cross referenced under philosophy, and indexed under religion. It is a business bible

That's what we have here in Peterson's book. And it's so brilliantly written that the dot com word isn't even buzzed once.

At some point in their nacent lives, even dot com companies are going to have to make a profit. That means selling goods or services for more than they cost to produce. It also means the company- wide adoption of sound business practices that control much of the free-floating risk in their businesses. It probably wouldn't hurt a few thousand of these start-up

companies to read Peterson's book and live by the lessons. Sure would change the horizon of the dot com industry, though. Companies would have more revenue, better cash flow, and actually make a profit (GASP!) And what would the market think? Shareholders would be happier, have more money to spend, employees would be more realistic and grateful for a job. Oh, and managers would make better business decisions.

This book had page after page of epiphanies. You know, the sudden

realization where you get to "Ah-hah!" that the dot commers' as an industry group have obviously overlooked in all of their technical innovation.. It's one thing to call yourself an entrepreneur and make a profit. It's entirely another to manage a business with a torrid cash burn rate that goes ripping out of the shareholders pockets, dragging the stock price down with it. Well, should you expect anything less if you can't recognize or manage business risk?

The real benefit to me from this book is the realization that although e-commerce companies these days must spend to develop all the sustainable competitive advantages possible, they must also instill throughout the employee base a strong sense of fiscal discipline and the impact of risk on every business decision.. Fundamentals my friend. It isn't about cold fusion or landing a crew on the nearest star. It's about people, external partners, internal partners, and the right way to deal with them and their

little and not-so-little bundles of risk..

Belt tightening? Well, it's in there. It is always a daunting task for well-managed companies, but it's frequently a fatal one for free spending ones. And boy, did the March 2000 meltdown in the NASDAQ ever bring the matter to the attention of every stunned investor.

Picking the right partners? Working with banks? How to avoid shooting yourself in the foot? Trust me, it's all in there and it's all relevant today if you run a business. And there's one heck of a lot more.

What's most important, and Peterson spells it out in The Complete Entrepreneur, is a clear path to avoiding fatal business risks. He identifies them for you! The lessons are put on the table in a light-hearted fashion but don't be mislead. They have a heavy-handed impact on your business and it's success. Every lesson that makes you smarter ultimately saves you money. That's one path to profitability that builds shareholder value. You can either learn from the lessons in the book or for pay for them. Or have your shareholders pay for them which is a fairly ungainly expectation after the market has applied a 95% haircut to the price of your stock because you didn't know the first thing about recognizing business risk..

One day soon, the next generation of dot commerce entrepreneurs are going to step to the front with innovations we just haven't imagined. Brilliant individuals, all of them. The ones that stay there will have started with the fundamental lessons about business risk in Mark Peterson's The Complete Entrepreneur.