Blueprint to Business


Book Description

Essential reading for any would-be entrepreneur Blueprint to Business is the ultimate guide to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Bestselling author and CEO Mike Alden puts aside the rainbows and sunshine, gets real about what it takes to 'make it,' and gives you the real-world guidance you need to hear. Through anecdotes and advice, he shares his experiences along with those of other top founders and entrepreneurs to give you a realistic picture of what it takes to build a business. It's a bit of tough love, a healthy dose of reality, and a tremendously motivating guide to striking out on your own; from motivation and commitment to business licenses and the IRS, this guide is your personal handbook for the biggest adventure of your career. So you want to start a business: how much are you willing to commit in terms of time, money, and energy? How do you plan to bring in customers? What will set you apart from the crowd? What will convince clients to come to you rather than your competitor with an established track record? These questions must be answered before you even begin planning—and then, you have to make that canyon-sized leap from planning to doing. This book guides you through the early stages with practical advice from a real-world perspective. Turn 'dreams' into goals, and goals into reality Discover just what it takes to build a successful business Dig into the paperwork and legal/regulatory requirements Adjust your expectations to reflect your abilities and willingness to commit Starting a business could be the best thing you've ever done—or it could be the worst. Mitigate the risk by setting yourself up for success from the very beginning with the invaluable advice in Blueprint to Business. Praise for Blueprint to Business "I've had the opportunity to work directly with Michael Alden on his children's book. His business know how and ability to get things done is unparalleled.” —Naren Aryal, CEO Mascot Books. "As an entrepreneur and author myself, I would recommend Blueprint to Business to anyone who is in business or looking to start a company. Michael Alden's no nonsense approach is much needed for anyone who wants the real truth about the life of an entrepreneur." —Ken Kupchik, author of The Sales Survival Handbook Cold Calls, Commissions, and Caffeine Addiction The Real Truth About Life in Sales "Michael Alden's story is truly inspirational. He has seen some extremely difficult times and has overcome extraordinary odds along his journey. He harnessed what he learned even as a young child to achieve great business success. The lessons in Blueprint to Business not only help those in business but it is for anyone who wants more out of life.” —June Archer, author of YES! Every day can be a good day: The Keys to success that lead to an Amazing life “As a young entrepreneur, I have found that truly successful people help and teach others. Michael Alden has taken the time to help me with my business and my book. His experience is undeniable and I would recommend Blueprint to Business to any entrepreneur who wants to learn from someone who has done great things and continues to.” —Casey Adams, social media influencer and author of Rise of The Young: How To Turn Your Negative Situation Into A Positive Outcome, and Build A Successful Personal Brand “Being an entrepreneur has its challenges. Michael Alden shares his business experiences to help others succeed. His advice and enthusiasm is directed towards teaching and leading through example. If you are looking to succeed in business this book is a must read!




The Entrepreneur's Blueprint for Startup Success


Book Description

The Entrepreneur's Blueprint for Startup Success is your essential guide to navigating the intricate landscape of entrepreneurship in the Canadian business arena. Tailored specifically for Canadian Controlled Private Corporations (CCPC's), this comprehensive book takes you on a journey from the inception of your entrepreneurial venture to building a legacy beyond your business. With expert insights into legal considerations, financial foundations, tax strategies, governance, branding, and marketing, this book equips you with the knowledge needed to establish, grow, and sustain a successful CCPC. Delve into advanced financial management techniques, explore investment insights for wealth diversification, and master the art of strategic partnerships. With a focus on adapting to market trends, planning exit strategies, and creating a lasting legacy, each chapter provides practical guidance and real-world applications. Navigate the intricacies of Canadian corporate finance, from revenue recognition and dividend taxes to financial reporting and risk management. Benefit from in-depth discussions on optimizing capital structure and Net Present Value (NPV), supported by case studies that bring theory into actionable insights. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned business professional, "The Entrepreneur's Blueprint for Startup Success" is your go-to resource for achieving excellence in the dynamic world of Canadian Controlled Private Corporations. Crafted with clarity and expertise, this book charts a course for entrepreneurial success, empowering you to build a thriving business and leave a lasting impact. Unlock the secrets to financial success, strategic growth, and entrepreneurial excellence in the Canadian business landscape.




The Lean Startup


Book Description

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. 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.




Startup Leadership


Book Description

Anyone can start a business. But only leaders can succeed. Most entrepreneurs know the long odds: only a fraction of them will lead their enterprises through the rocky stages of growth to launch self-sustaining companies. Very few know how to outflank the failures that await them at every turn, including the most painful—being abandoned by key members of their team or getting pushed out by their board just as their business starts to generate real value. Derek Lidow is on a mission to improve these odds and change these outcomes. Throughout his long career—as CEO, innovator, and entrepreneur—he has tested virtually every aspect of launching a business. Lidow now argues that success is far less dependent upon a firm’s idea or any grand strategy than it is upon something more personal: leadership. Emerging companies have specific leadership requirements, stage by fast-moving stage. Few founders have been able to leverage the tremendous power of this underrecognized reality—until now. Startup Leadership demonstrates how founders can adopt the skills that are required at each stage of their journey. Whether you are at the idea stage or managing a more mature enterprise, you can start to recognize the fundamental conflict: how to balance your selfish drives with the more selfless leadership required by the organization at any given time. The book shows you how to achieve this balance by: Assessing your unique motivations, traits, and skills Creating a personal leadership strategy that leverages your strengths and mitigates your weaknesses Mastering how to lead teams, including boards Understanding the five prerequisites for driving change Taking control of your inevitable crises, thereby strengthening your team and your leadership With Lidow’s help, you will learn how to become the startup leader your business needs, and you’ll move forward with your plans with greater confidence and success.




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.




The Rocket Startup


Book Description

Take a look around you. Every company in the world-from the mom-and-pop store on the street corner to the largest corporations in the world-all began as an idea in someone's mind. What happens in between the points where an idea first forms in someone's mind, to the point it becomes a trillion-dollar multinational enterprise?Every success leaves clues, and The Rocket Startup offers a blueprint to business success, crafted from analyzing and emulating the success models of the world's finest companies. Written by seasoned businessman and startup advisor Dimitri Kouchnirenko, in collaboration with serial entrepreneur and multiple-time bestselling author Wilbert Wynnberg, this book dispels the fog of uncertainty that could be stopping anyone with an entrepreneurial streak from realizing their greatness.Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a business owner, or simply a brilliant mind, this book walks you through the journey of turning your idea into an empire of wealth and success. At every step of the process, The Rocket Startup equips you with detailed frameworks and explanations at every step of the process, and answers questions like: What traps and mistakes should I avoid as an entrepreneur? How can I make sure my business idea can become a success? Which are the best ways, sources and timing to get funding for my business? Where do I start when building my company? How do I make a successful pitch? How much is my company worth? How do I recruit and manage my staff? And many more...Developed for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs, The Rocket Startup is the ultimate companion to kickstart your business idea from the launchpad of your mind and take it to astronomical heights. Are you ready for liftoff?




The Titanic Effect


Book Description

“I have read dozens of books on starting companies, but this is the first that accurately captures why startups fail and provides a tool for entrepreneurs and investors to measure and manage these sources of failure.” Michael Hatfield, Co-Founder, Cerent, Calix, Cienna, and Carium. What makes a startup successful? This book, from award-winning business school professors and a tech serial entrepreneur, tells what makes startups successful. Instead of telling startups what to do, like most startup books, they share what startups should avoid. Along the way, they share small business startup success stories gleaned from the How Built This Podcast and their firsthand experiences. These stories of startup success are contrasted with stories of startup failure from startup graveyards and most notably, the Titanic. Like many of today’s startups, the Titanic hoped to disrupt the transportation industry of its time. It fell short, to a disastrous outcome, from the same sources that prevent startup success today. Get a startup game plan! This startup book uses the Titanic and a sailing metaphor to provide a startup roadmap template. It shows what makes startups successfully navigate through challenges in startup investing, founding, and hiring with a game plan to get through the Human Ocean. It offers a startup guide to customer success in working through the Marketing Ocean. It even highlights what startups need to invest in to get through the Technical and Strategy Oceans. Its Iceberg Index gives entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses a way to track their progress on the startup roadmap template. It also helps investors assess what startups to invest in. Many entrepreneurs assume that the Titanic was sunk by a single iceberg. The Titanic Effect shows, that like many startups, it’s not a single misstep but a series of mistakes that keep a startup from being successful. This combination of missteps is called the Titanic Effect. Who can benefit from this startup roadmap? Entrepreneurs in the early stages of building a startup. They will learn what makes a startup successful. They will develop a to-do list of decisions to make and actions to take. Small business owners will also identify key next steps to building their startup game plan. Investors can identify what to avoid in startup investments and what startups to invest in. Students will learn how to evaluate the success potential of a startup and will read small business and startup success stories. These three co-authors have witnessed firsthand what leads to startup success. They have made it their mission to help entrepreneurs, startup founders and startup investors succeed. Drs. Todd and M. Kim Saxton bring more than two decades of academic and professional experience in business strategy, entrepreneurship, marketing, and angel investing. Serial tech entrepreneur, Michael Cloran, adds his two decades’ of experiences in launching his own startups as well as building software products for other startups. In addition, the co-authors serve on various boards of entrepreneurial ventures and startup advisory associations. They have shared their expertise from the stage to dozens of audiences, including students, entrepreneurship and professional development associations, academic societies, and global companies like Roche Diagnostics and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.




The Mom Test


Book Description

The Mom Test is a quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak. They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question and everyone will lie to you at least a little . As a matter of fact, it's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it and it's worth doing right . Talking to customers is one of the foundational skills of both Customer Development and Lean Startup. We all know we're supposed to do it, but nobody seems willing to admit that it's easy to screw up and hard to do right. This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong and how you can do better.




The Startup Way


Book Description

Entrepreneur and bestselling author of The Lean Startup, Eric Ries reveals how entrepreneurial principles can be used by businesses of all kinds, ranging from established companies to early-stage startups, to grow revenues, drive innovation, and transform themselves into truly modern organizations, poised to take advantage of the enormous opportunities of the twenty-first century. In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries laid out the practices of successful startups – building a minimal viable product, customer-focused and scientific testing based on a build-measure-learn method of continuous innovation, and deciding whether to persevere or pivot. In The Startup Way, he turns his attention to an entirely new group of organizations: established enterprises like iconic multinationals GE and Toyota, tech titans like Amazon and Facebook, and the next generation of Silicon Valley upstarts like Airbnb and Twilio. Drawing on his experiences over the past five years working with these organizations, as well as nonprofits, NGOs, and governments, Ries lays out a system of entrepreneurial management that leads organizations of all sizes and from every industry to sustainable growth and long-term impact. Filled with in-the-field stories, insights, and tools, The Startup Way is an essential road map for any organization navigating the uncertain waters of the century ahead.




Invent, Reinvent, Thrive: The Keys to Success for Any Start-Up, Entrepreneur, or Family Business


Book Description

In today's uncertain world of business, one rule stands above the rest: If you want to survive--let alone thrive--you must embrace change. Everything else comes after. In Invent Reinvent Thrive Kellogg School of Management Professor Lloyd Shefsky provides the inspiration and insight any entrepreneur or family business needs for long-term success--and he backs it all up with proven models of what works and what doesn't. Shefsky reveals the common thread of all business success stories: reinvention. He explains not just how to reinvent concepts and ideas from the start, but ways to continuously innovate and reinvent your business to meet today's constantly changing marketplace conditions. In addition to his own expert insight, Shefsky provides firsthand advice through case studies derived from dozens of original interviews with entrepreneurs and family business giants, consisting of the leaders of some of today's most successful companies, including: Howard Schultz (founder, Chairman, and CEO of Starbucks) Jim Sinegal (founder of Costco) Chuck Schwab (founder of Charles Schwab & Co.) Tom Stemberg (founder of Staples) The author also gives special attention to family businesses (which account for over half the U.S. GDP) and how to address vexing family disparities, enabling family businesses to last more than two generations. Invent Reinvent Thrive offers all the answers you need to get your business where you want it to be. You'll learn exactly where new and multi-generational business owners fall short and miss incredible opportunities, why they fail to take the plunge or innovate--and how you can rework, revitalize, and reinvent your business not just to avoid the most common perils but to lead your business to the apex of your industry. "Entrepreneurship is not a cataclysmic event," Shefsky writes. "It is a constant process." Follow his advice through every step of the process and you will successfully invent, reinvent--and thrive. PRAISE FOR INVENT REINVENT THRIVE: "If you think business books are boring, this is your chance to prove yourself wrong. Storytelling is an art, and Shefsky brings that art to business. Invent Reinvent Thrive is a treasure trove of valuable lessons." -- STAN KASTEN, President and CEO, Los Angeles Dodgers; former President of the Washington Nationals and the Atlanta Braves, Hawks, and Thrashers "Invent Reinvent Thrive is full of wise and practical guidance for both would-be and continuing entrepreneurs. Shefsky's discussions provide wonderful advice that will aid anyone embarking on or continuing in an entrepreneurial enterprise." -- DAVID RUDER, former Chairman, Securities & Exchange Commission "Our company's direct experience with Lloyd Shefsky . . . inspired us to methodically pursue Brown-Forman's never-ending greatness, and this book can do the same for others. I highly recommend Invent Reinvent Thrive to all businesspeople." -- PAUL VARGA, CEO and Chairman, Brown-Forman Corporation, producer of Jack Daniels, Finlandia, Southern Comfort, and other spirits "Lloyd Shefsky tackles the issues many entrepreneurs face and offers practical advice to defy the odds. If you've had business success, yet need to go to the next level, read this book." -- GINGER GRAHAM, former President and CEO, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, and former faculty at the Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at the Harvard Business School "This is a very serious study of a critical issue, and no one dealing with entrepreneurship or family businesses should make the mistake of ignoring it." -- ISRAEL ZANG, Professor and former Dean of Business School and Vice Provost of Tel Aviv University