Startup Field Guide: Mistakes To Avoid, Tips To Get Ahead


Book Description

Thinking about launching a startup? Have an idea you want to succeed? In this book, Sean shares the priceless insight he has gained over the years on what it takes to lead a growing startup. In basic, no nonsense terms, he advises budding entrepreneurs with tips and tricks to succeed at finance, marketing, sales, leadership, hiring, firing, business development, product management, and more. Go into your venture with your eyes wide open. "Just enough, by somebody who knows more than enough because he's done it himself enough to give you exactly what you're looking for." -Michael E. Gerber, Author of The E-Myth Books, and Awakening the Entrepreneur Within "A true 'field guide.' Sean's book has the real-world tips, hacks, and resources that you need to get you launching your startup, learning to grow, and living the entrepreneurial dream!" -Brant Cooper, Author of The Lean Entrepreneur




Why Startups Fail


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.




Startup CEO


Book Description

You’re only a startup CEO once. Do it well with Startup CEO, a "master class in building a business." —Dick Costolo, Former CEO, Twitter Being a startup CEO is a job like no other: it’s difficult, risky, stressful, lonely, and often learned through trial and error. As a startup CEO seeing things for the first time, you’re likely to make mistakes, fail, get things wrong, and feel like you don’t have any control over outcomes. Author Matt Blumberg has been there, and in Startup CEO he shares his experience, mistakes, and lessons learned as he guided Return Path from a handful of employees and no revenues to over $100 million in revenues and 500 employees. Startup CEO is not a memoir of Return Path's 20-year journey but a thoughtful CEO-focused book that provides first-time CEOs with advice, tools, and approaches for the situations that startup CEOs will face. You'll learn: How to tell your story to new hires, investors, and customers for greater alignment How to create a values-based culture for speed and engagement How to create business and personal operating systems so that you can balance your life and grow your company at the same time How to develop, lead, and leverage your board of directors for greater impact How to ensure that your company is bought, not sold, when you exit Startup CEO is the field guide every CEO needs throughout the growth of their company.




Unscaled


Book Description

Unscaled identifies the forces that are reshaping the global economy and turning one of the fundamental laws of business and society -- the economies of scale -- on its head. An innovative trend combining technology with economics is unraveling behemoth industries -- including corporations, banks, farms, media conglomerates, energy systems, governments, and schools-that have long dominated business and society. Size and scale have become a liability. A new generation of upstarts is using artificial intelligence to automate tasks that once required expensive investment, and "renting" technology platforms to build businesses for hyper-focused markets, enabling them to grow big without the bloat of giant organizations. In Unscaled, venture capitalist Hemant Taneja explains how the unscaled phenomenon allowed Warby Parker to cheaply and easily start a small company, build a better product, and become a global competitor in no time, upending entrenched eyewear giant Luxottica. It similarly enabled Stripe to take on established payment processors throughout the world, and Livongo to help diabetics control their disease while simultaneously cutting the cost of treatment. The unscaled economy is remaking massive, deeply rooted industries and opening up fantastic possibilities for entrepreneurs, imaginative companies, and resourceful individuals. It can be the model for solving some of the world's greatest problems, including climate change and soaring health-care costs, but will also unleash new challenges that today's leaders must address.




GoPro MAX: How To Use GoPro Max


Book Description

Learn everything you need to know to master your GoPro MAX 360 camera in this guide book from the #1 AMAZON BEST SELLING AUTHOR on how to use GoPro cameras. Written specifically for GoPro Max, this is the perfect guide book for anyone who wants to learn how to use the GoPro Max camera to capture unique 360 and traditional videos and photos. Packed with color images, this book provides clear, step-by-step lessons to get you out there using your GoPro MAX camera to document your life and your adventures. This book covers everything you need to know about using your GoPro MAX camera. The book teaches you: *how to operate your GoPro Max camera; *how to choose settings for full 360 spherical video; *how you can tap into the most powerful, often overlooked settings for traditional video; *tips for the best GoPro mounts to use with GoPro Max; *vital 360 photography/cinematography knowledge; *simple photo, video and time lapse editing techniques for 360 and traditional output and *the many ways to share your edited videos and photos. Through the SEVEN STEPS laid out in this book, you will understand your camera and learn how to use mostly FREE software to finally do something with your results. This book is perfect for beginners, but also provides in depth knowledge that will be useful for intermediate camera users. Written specifically for the GoPro MAX camera.




The Entrepreneur's Business Guide: From a Startup Approach


Book Description

The entrepreneur's business guide is a step-by-step start-up business book that addresses business from the start-up phase to ideally the developmental stage. This is a startup business book. This book is a start-up CEO field guide book to scaling up your business, this start-up manual will help you understand what steps to take:1) Change of mentality between the business world and the employment world conventional way of starting up a business.2) How to develop a business idea and convert it into a business plan3) Franchise business model and tips, you need to know before choosing a franchised firm.4) Outsourcing business model with more than 50 business start-up ideas you can pick from to start up your own business5) Network marketing approach for start-up building from the ground up6) Learn how to manage and troubleshoot your business sales as a start-up or as an already growing brand.




Startup Communities


Book Description

An essential guide to building supportive entrepreneurial communities "Startup communities" are popping up everywhere, from cities like Boulder to Boston and even in countries such as Iceland. These types of entrepreneurial ecosystems are driving innovation and small business energy. Startup Communities documents the buzz, strategy, long-term perspective, and dynamics of building communities of entrepreneurs who can feed off of each other's talent, creativity, and support. Based on more than twenty years of Boulder-based entrepreneur turned-venture capitalist Brad Feld's experience in the field?as well as contributions from other innovative startup communities?this reliable resource skillfully explores what it takes to create an entrepreneurial community in any city, at any time. Along the way, it offers valuable insights into increasing the breadth and depth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem by multiplying connections among entrepreneurs and mentors, improving access to entrepreneurial education, and much more. Details the four critical principles needed to form a sustainable startup community Perfect for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists seeking fresh ideas and new opportunities Written by Brad Feld, a thought-leader in this field who has been an early-stage investor and successful entrepreneur for more than twenty years Engaging and informative, this practical guide not only shows you how startup communities work, but it also shows you how to make them work anywhere in the world.




The Way of the Intelligent Rebel


Book Description

Olivier Roland offers an inspiring road map to help readers get more out of life as an 'Intelligent Rebel' and find success and fulfilment by breaking out of the system. Do you dream of a less stressful life? Break out of the system, embrace your purpose and shape your own journey to success and fulfilment. We're not designed for a one-size-fits-all education or lifestyle-so why not choose a path where you can make your own rules, follow your passions, and live a rewarding, purpose-fueled life? Breaking out of the "system" and becoming an entrepreneur or a creator can be daunting, but with this step-by-step guide to taking charge of your life, realizing your individual potential, and building a sustainable business with minimal risk, you'll discover that the way of the intelligent rebel is ultimately a path to freedom and self-realization. You'll learn how to: navigate the limitations of traditional education to learn effectively create a viable and sustainable business that serves your lifestyle implement cutting-edge business tools and strategies for success start your business part-time, even if you have a job or studies hack your self-led learning with revolutionary techniques embrace your purpose and live with happiness and freedom




Surviving a Startup


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.




Lost and Founder


Book Description

Rand Fishkin, the founder and former CEO of Moz, reveals how traditional Silicon Valley "wisdom" leads far too many startups astray, with the transparency and humor that his hundreds of thousands of blog readers have come to love. Everyone knows how a startup story is supposed to go: A young, brilliant entrepreneur has a cool idea, drops out of college, defies the doubters, overcomes all odds, makes billions, and becomes the envy of the technology world. This is not that story. It's not that things went badly for Rand Fishkin; they just weren't quite so Zuckerberg-esque. His company, Moz, maker of marketing software, is now a $45 million/year business, and he's one of the world's leading experts on SEO. But his business and reputation took fifteen years to grow, and his startup began not in a Harvard dorm room but as a mother-and-son family business that fell deeply into debt. Now Fishkin pulls back the curtain on tech startup mythology, exposing the ups and downs of startup life that most CEOs would rather keep secret. For instance: A minimally viable product can be destructive if you launch at the wrong moment. Growth hacking may be the buzzword du jour, but initiatives can fizzle quickly. Revenue and growth won't protect you from layoffs. And venture capital always comes with strings attached. Fishkin's hard-won lessons are applicable to any kind of business environment. Up or down the chain of command, at both early stage startups and mature companies, whether your trajectory is riding high or down in the dumps: this book can help solve your problems, and make you feel less alone for having them.