On Startups: Advice and Insights for Entrepreneurs PDF Download

Author: Dharmesh Shah
Publisher: Hyperink Inc
ISBN: 1614645965
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Note from the Author Hi, my name is Dharmesh, and I’m a startup addict. And, chances are, if you’re reading this, you have at least a mild obsession as well. This book is based on content from the OnStartups.com blog. The story behind how the blog got started is sort of interesting—but before I tell you that story, it’ll help to understand my earlier story. As a professional programmer, I used to work in a reasonably fun job doing what I liked to do (write code). Eventually, I got a little frustrated with it all, so at the ripe old age of 24, I started my first software company. It did pretty well. It was on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies three times. It reached millions of dollars of sales and was ultimately acquired. I ran that first company for over 10 years working the typical startup hours. When I sold that company, I went back to school to get a master’s degree at MIT. I’ve always enjoyed academics, and I figured this would be a nice “soft landing” and give me some time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. As part of my degree requirements, I had to write a graduate thesis. I titled my thesis “On Startups: Patterns and Practices of Contemporary Software Entrepreneurs.” And, as part of that thesis work, I wanted to get some feedback from some entrepreneurs. So, I figured I’d start a blog. I took the first two words of the thesis title, “On Startups,” discovered that the domain name OnStartups.com was available, and was then off to the races. The blog was launched on November 5, 2005. Since then, the blog and associated community have grown quite large. Across Facebook, LinkedIn, and email subscribers, there are over 300,000 people in the OnStartups.com audience. This book is a collection of some of the best articles from over 7 years of OnStartups.com. The articles have been topically organized and edited. I hope you enjoy them.

Author: John BRADBERRY
Publisher: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn
ISBN: 0814416063
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
It takes passion to start a new business. But that same entrepreneurial enthusiasm can also lead you astray.Over six million Americans start businesses every year. That's 11 startups a minute launched by passionate dreamers hoping to transform their lives for the better. But a huge gap exists between the skyrocketing levels of desire and what entrepreneurs actually achieve. The harsh reality is that most new businesses fail within a few years of launch. Why do so few startups make it? And what distinguishes those that do succeed? Entrepreneur, consultant, and investor John Bradberry set out to discover the answer and came to a surprising conclusionùthat the passion that drives and energizes so many founders is also the very thing that leads many of them astray. Filled with compelling real-life stories of both success and failure, this groundbreaking book reveals the key principles entrepreneurs must follow to ensure their big idea is on the right track. In 6 Secrets to Startup Success, readers will learn how to: Convert their passion into economic value with a moneymaking business model ò Improve their readiness to launch and lead a new venture ò Manage funding and cash flows ò Chart a path to breakeven and beyond ò Avoid the pitfalls that often accompany unfettered passion ò Build the stamina needed to persevere over time Complete with indispensable tools including an assessment to gauge a venture's strengths and weaknesses, 6 Secrets to Startup Success will help entrepreneurs everywhere turn their dreams into reality.

Author: Tom Eisenmann
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0593137027
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

Author: Sean Wise
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119378184
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Start strong with essential early-stage guidance from the VC perspective Startup Opportunities is the go-to guide for anyone with a great business idea. Whether it's your first business or your fifth, realistic assessment from the outset can save you a lot of time and money; why pour your heart and soul into a venture that is doomed to fail? Instead, position yourself to win from the very beginning. In this book, accomplished venture capitalists share their insight on startups and entrepreneurs: who will fail, who will succeed and why, and what you should do to give your business the very best shot at becoming a global success story. You'll learn how to evaluate your business with a critical eye, and how early customer development can be key in turning a good idea into a great opportunity. If you're serious about building a business that lasts, this book provides invaluable guidance that you really cannot miss. More than five million people will launch a business this year, and many of them will be great ideas—yet few will be around in five years, and even fewer in ten years. A great idea is not enough to build a successful business. You need to fortify your idea with the proper foundation, and a scaffolding of good planning and early action. This book shows you how. Assess your business's viability using the 10x Rule Learn when you can quit your day job—or not Take the key steps to making your business succeed Discover the opportunities worth selling everything for This expert author team has witnessed more than 30,000 pitches over two decades, and have participated in over 500 startup launches. Startup Opportunities gives you the benefit of their experience to help you start strong and stay strong.

Author: David Kidder
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452105049
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
" ... [The author] shares the inspiring experiences, lessons, and words to the wise from more than forty founders, along with his own playbook for startup success"--Page 4 of cover.

Author: Diana Kander
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118857666
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
If Owen Chase can't find a way to turn his company around in the next nine days, he'll be forced to shut it down and lay off all of his employees. He has incurred substantial debt and his marriage is on shaky ground. 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.

Author: Rajat Bhargava
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119708532
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
Get the real guidance you need to create and build your first startup company from founders who have been there many times before. The first run printing of The Startup Playbook SOLD OUT! So, we revised, expanded, and improved this second edition, including a new foreword by Brad Feld, author of Venture Deals. We still give our personal, how-to guide for building your startup from the ground up. You'll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts we've learned that will shift the odds in your favor. We're sharing our tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion with you. We make no bones about our bias. We're on your side, the founder's side. While venture capitalists, investors, and accelerators/incubators can add great value in the startup ecosystem, this book isn't about their points of view. We'll tell you where our interests as founders diverge from those on the other side of the table—investors, bankers, advisors, board members, and others—and what to do when that happens. The Startup Playbook is not a recipe, it's not a template, it's not a list of tasks to do. It's our insider's guide to starting a company and running it successfully in those critical early months. Between us, we've started over a dozen high-tech software companies and raised over $500 million in investment capital. We've acquired over thirty-five companies, had three of our startups go public, sold six of them, and we made billions of dollars for shareholders. We've also invested in over eighty startups, advised and mentored over two hundred companies and actively worked with venture capitalists (VCs), incubators, and accelerators to help launch many other new startups. We've had plenty of failures, too. And we've probably learned more from those than from the successes. We share those lessons as well. The Startup Playbook is full of our advice, guidance, do's, and don'ts from our years of experience as founders many times. We want to share our hard-earned knowledge with you to make success easier for you to achieve. "This book is extraordinarily fresh and exciting. In an accessible, straight talk fashion, this book is a manual, and an inspiration. The Startup Playbook is smart and avoids the 'I am so smart' over-writing endemic to the genre. Read this as it is presented. You'll be doing yourself a tremendous favor." —Amazon Reviewer

Author: Steven S. Hoffman
Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
ISBN: 1400223210
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Steve Hoffman, CEO of Founders Space, prepares entrepreneurs to avoid mistakes, overcome obstacles, and master the skills necessary to make the right choices along their path to success. The fact is, over 90 percent of all new startups fail. Every entrepreneur must face this harsh reality and learn to master it if they hope to survive and wind up on top. In Surviving a Startup, Hoffman brings readers on a wild ride, sharing with them the tumultuous journey of launching a venture-funded startup and revealing what it takes to make it. In this one-of-a-kind guide, you will learn: A deep analysis and insights into the major challenges every entrepreneur faces when launching a business. How to make the best possible decisions and deal with crisis situations. Strategies for raising capital and growing a business, even when it seems impossible. Secrets on how to manage difficult employees, demonstrate leadership, and overcome disasters. Essential traits that enable startup founders to survive and succeed. The best way to develop innovative products, conduct guerilla marketing campaigns, obtain PR, and outmaneuver competitors. How to recruit the best talent, manage highly efficient teams, and motivate employees, even with little to no money. The steps necessary to transform an idea into a robust, rapidly growing business. As the captain of one of the world's leading startup incubators and accelerators, Steve knows what it's like to be on the front lines, how tough it can get when the battle turns against the entrepreneur, and what it takes to taste victory and overcome seemingly impossible odds. Surviving a Startup is a must read for entrepreneurs considering taking the best first steps for a new venture.

Author: Harvard Business Review
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1633694399
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
The best entrepreneurs balance brilliant business ideas with a rigorous commitment to serving their customers' needs. If you read nothing else on entrepreneurship and startups, read these 10 articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you build your company for enduring success. Leading experts and practitioners such as Clayton Christensen, Marc Andreessen, and Reid Hoffman provide the insights and advice that will inspire you to: Understand what makes entrepreneurial leaders tick Know what matters in a great business plan Adopt lean startup practices such as business model experimentation Be prepared for the race for scale in Silicon Valley Better understand the world of venture capital--and know what you'll get along with VC funding Take an alternative approach to entrepreneurship: buy an existing business and run it as CEO This collection of articles includes "Hiring an Entrepreneurial Leader," by Timothy Butler; "How to Write a Great Business Plan," by William A. Sahlman; "Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything," by Steve Blank; "The President of SRI Ventures on Bringing Siri to Life," by Norman Winarsky; "In Search of the Next Big Thing," an interview with Marc Andreessen by Adi Ignatius; "Six Myths About Venture Capitalists," by Diane Mulcahy; "Chobani's Founder on Growing a Start-Up Without Outside Investors," by Hamdi Ulukaya; "Network Effects Aren’t Enough," by Andrei Hagiu and Simon Rothman; "Blitzscaling," an interview with Reid Hoffman by Tim Sullivan; "Buying Your Way into Entrepreneurship," by Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff; and "The Founder's Dilemma," by Noam Wasserman.

Author: Mona Bijoor
Publisher: Indigo River Publishing
ISBN: 9781950906086
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Entrepreneurship is a cycle of failures and recoveries-hopefully with more successes than not. This national bestseller is about resilience and navigating the process. How do the best entrepreneurs think about failure-as it's happening and in hindsight-and ultimately win? Today’s media is replete with stories about major entrepreneurial successes, IPOs (initial public offerings), mergers, and acquisitions. Reporters and readers alike have also been captivated by the stories of entrepreneurial failures, downfalls, and massive exits (think Travis Kalanick, Elizabeth Holmes, and Doug Evans). However, entrepreneurship is rarely linear, and a lot happens between the headlines and reality. Entrepreneurship is a cycle of failures and recoveries—hopefully with more successes than not. Start-Ups and Downs: The Secrets of Resilient Entrepreneurs shares the wisdom of one entrepreneur who successfully disrupted an entire industry but felt as if she was never prepared for what came next. Mona Bijoor has created a guidebook for navigating the process, from pitching with power to coping with competition, with inspiring stories from respected entrepreneurs, including Nat Turner, cofounder and CEO of Flatiron Health; Courtney Nichols Gould, founder and co-CEO of SmartyPants Vitamins; and Stephen Kuhl, cofounder and CEO of Burrow, intended to lift up anyone determined to keep pushing forward. This book is about resilience. How do the best entrepreneurs think about failure—as it’s happening and in hindsight—and ultimately win?