The Tao of Startups


Book Description

This book, "The Tao of Startups: A guidebook for your entrepreneurial life (a step-by-step, how to guide for doing a successful startup)" is the one book you need if you are considering doing, or in the process of doing, a startup. Face it. Odds-wise you have a much better chance of becoming a pro athlete than a successful startup entrepreneur. Internationally successful serial entrepreneur James LaLonde takes you through the key things you need to get right in the early days of your startup before you turn the next 5+ years of your life and your startup into a stress-laden nightmare. How to do all the things that most first-time entrepreneurs get wrong or ignore are here in this book: - How to select the right co-founders- How to build a winning Minimum Viable Product (MVP)- How to make a bulletproof pitch deck and then successfully use it to get VC funding also, a lot of essential information that has never been organized and gathered in one place is all here: - All the ways you can get funding without giving up precious equity to VCs- How to split the equity between co-founders to ensure its fair and won't end up being a point of contention that destroys your startup- How to set the valuation for your startup and how to get investors to accept it- How to get through all the investor meetings and the inevitable due diligence so you can get the investment you need to grow your business- and much more! The author, James LaLonde, is a sought-after speaker and startup mentor with 15 years of doing multiple startups in Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Beijing. In addition to his startup and investment activities, James serves as a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing (affiliated with Loyola University) and is a mentor for ChinaAccelerator, Stanford University Graduate School of Business and The Beijing Center. The materials contained in this book have perfected over years of the author's actual startup experience, thousands of hours of startup founder mentoring, hundreds of hours of presentations and university lectures to people who are planning to start companies. The book gives you everything you need to get you and your startup team and product launched and funded without any fluff or non-essential filler. The 8-minute presentation that formed the genesis of this book idea and subsequent university course is on YouTube. Feel free to have a look at the video before you buy to get a feel for the content: https: //youtu.be/3Goi2z-7bXQ




The Tao of the Side Hustle


Book Description

Your pay isn't keeping up with the cost of living. Student debt weighs you down. Job opportunities just aren't there, and you feel like you're falling farther and farther behind. Maybe it's time to look beyond a traditional job and get ahead through a side hustle. In The Tao of the Side Hustle, martial arts champion and serial side hustler Don Hyun Kiolbassa applies principles of Wushu Kung Fu—the Chinese War Art popularized by Sun Tzu in Art of War—to provide a detailed framework for starting and growing your own venture. Don Hyun Kiolbassa is no stranger to side hustles. In addition to owning his own law firm, he is a CPA, martial artist, dynamic speaker and performer, and the motion capture model for some of the biggest action video games in the industry. When he was at his lowest professionally and financially, he had an epiphany that helped him grow a side hustle into a full-time business: the principles of Wushu Kung Fu apply to business just as they do to fighting. He turned to the fundamental principles of strategy learned in a lifetime of Martial Arts, including his time living as a Monk at the Shaolin Temple in China. In The Tao of the Side Hustle, Don shares this martial arts wisdom, blends Buddhist Martial Arts stories with strategic business, tax and legal principles, and explains how anyone interested in a side hustle or small business can follow in his footsteps. Learn how to: Identify a side hustle suited to your skills and passions Join forces with family, friends, colleagues, and mentors to help launch successfully Deal with failure, rejection, and doubt Manage your time, including juggling your side hustle with your primary gig Decide if your side hustle should become your full-time income source Grow your side hustle into a full-fledged business Scale your business by establishing your mission, hiring, managing, and building a culture If you know you want something better—a stronger financial picture, a better job, more control over your life—The Tao of the Side Hustle is your playbook for making it happen.




The Tao of Strategy


Book Description

The Tao of Strategy combines ancient wisdom from the Eastern world’s great philosophers and lessons from modern-day business leaders to provide readers innovative approaches to unlock strategic breakthroughs for themselves and their organizations. Today’s organizational strategists—including executives, managers, consultants, and the business students who aspire to join their ranks—will encounter novel ways of solving complex problems. In this engaging examination of the wisdom of Confucius and the strategies of The Art of War, the mindfulness of the Buddha and the perspectives of the Bhagavad Gita, as well as the advice of The Tao Te Ching and the fun of playing the ancient board game of Go, The Tao of Strategy presents alternative, creative ways to open up one’s strategic thinking. The Tao of Strategy highlights a range of companies, from earth-moving equipment manufacturers Komatsu and Caterpillar to technology providers Infosys and Sun Microsystems to financial institutions Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. Interviews with chief executives from China Steel, PTT Group, Bacardi, Rodale Press, Aston Martin, and other organizations reveal how insights from Eastern philosophy inform the strategic decision-making of organizations and leaders around the world. By engaging with Eastern philosophy from the perspective of organizational strategy, The Tao of Strategy offers a novel approach to strategic thinking that can help readers navigate today’s increasingly complex strategic challenges and unpredictable global environment.




The Tao of Alibaba


Book Description

From a long-time Alibaba executive and former special assistant to Jack Ma, this is the first book to articulate how Alibaba's unique culture and “tai chi” management principles are providing a business and economic development model for the rest of the world. If you took the economic might of Amazon, and added the penetration of Facebook, the ubiquity of Google, and the cultural significance of YouTube, you might have something starting to resemble Alibaba. Commonly mischaracterized as a kind of Chinese eBay for businesses, Alibaba and its interlinked network of products and services have exploded into global markets, disrupting conventional businesses and creating previously unimaginable opportunities for millions of small businesses worldwide. This book reveals the Tao of Alibaba—the company’s “secret sauce”—a consciously cultivated ethos and spirit that has enabled Alibaba to weather tough times and setbacks, and persist toward a common mission. It is a blueprint of the company’s management philosophy, crystalized into the most important elements that have driven its success, and it provides a road map for how to incorporate these principles into any organization’s operations. Wong distills his nearly two decades of experience inside the company to show readers how to align their organization’s capabilities with performance-maximizing tools in order to achieve success. But most importantly, the Tao of Alibaba teaches the pursuit of greater purpose and meaning, steering entrepreneurs to view their ventures as a vehicle for having profound and lasting impacts on their communities. Ultimately, the lessons shared in The Tao of Alibaba will serve as timeless tools for any entrepreneur seeking to configure their organization toward purpose and impact.




Responsible Management and Taoism, Volume 1


Book Description

As the world grapples with the complexities and uncertainties of the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) era, it has become imperative to explore new approaches that align with responsible management and Taoist principles.




The Mousedriver Chronicles


Book Description

When John Lusk and Kyle Harrison graduated from Wharton in 1999, nearly all of their entrepreneurially minded classmates set their sights on conquering the dot-com world. To the almost universal disdain of their friends and professors, these two turned down tempting job offers, borrowed money from friends and family, loaded up on credit card debt, and decided to start a single-product company to manufacture and market a computer mouse shaped like the head of a golf club. They watched enviously as nearly all of their friends became millionaires in the dot-com boom, but they persevered and forged their own path. To chart their progress and to keep themselves motivated against the odds, they kept a diary that recorded the realities of their everyday life as entrepreneurs. Out of their diary entries grew The MouseDriver Chronicles, an intimate, insightful, and often funny look into the minds of two entrepreneurs and how they brought a simple idea to market. From The MouseDriver Chronicles: "School was just about over, and the wondrous combination of brick-baking heat and relentless high humidity that defines summer in south Philadelphia wasn't too far off. We couldn't afford to wait around for it. We needed to blaze to San Francisco and get rolling. Fine. No problem. Except we didn't yet have an office in San Francisco. Or a place to live. Or MouseDrivers in stock. We had all our plans and ambition, but everything real about running a business was ahead of us. Immediately ahead."




One Simple Idea for Franchises, Startups and Entrepreneurs


Book Description

TWO E-BOOKS IN ONE One Simple Idea Stephen Key has been living this dream for 30 years. The developer of such lucrative products as Michael Jordan’s WallBall®, the Spinformation® rotating label, and HotPicks® guitar picks, he knows better than anyone how to make a great living as an entrepreneur. Key develops ideas for new products, licenses them out, collects royalty checks, and doesn’t look back. You can do it, too. All you need is One Simple Idea. “Ever heard of Teddy Ruxpin or Lazer Tag? Both have Stephen Key’s mark on them. He is the Yoda or ‘renting’ ideas for serious passive income. From how-to to war stories, this is a great book.” —Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek One Simple Idea for Startups and Entrepreneurs Stephen Key helps you live the entrepreneurial dream by delivering a proven, straightforward process for starting, growing, and running a business—without the need for an MBA or millions of dollars in funding. Case studies, tips, and advice from other successful entrepreneurs underscore key principles to make it easier than ever for you to achieve your business and life dreams.




The Tao of Craft


Book Description

For the first time in English, Benebell Wen reveals the rich history and theoretical principles underlying the ancient practice of crafting Fu talismans, or magical sigils, in the Chinese Taoist tradition and gives detailed instructions for modern practitioners who would like to craft their own Fu. Fu talismans are ideograms and writings typically rendered on paper and empowered by means of invocations, ritual, and transferences of energy, or Qi. Talismans can be used for many purposes, such as strengthening or weakening personality characteristics, finding love, earning more money, or easing emotional tensions in the home. The Tao of Craft shows how metaphysical energy can be harnessed to amplify, strengthen, weaken, dispel, or block other metaphysical energy and to rectify perceived imbalances in the material plane. Supported by an abundance of detailed charts and images, this book serves as a step-by-step handbook that gives readers the knowledge and confidence to craft their own Fu talismans for personal empowerment. Wen, author of Holistic Tarot, delves into historic and cultural contexts of the Fu, from the neolithic period of Chinese history to contemporary practices of esoteric Taoism. Providing a solid foundation in the principles of Eastern spellcrafting, she highlights the blending of Taoist metaphysical practices with Western approaches to magic by pointing out eclectic, integrating, and harmonizing facets from other cultures and religions. Historically, Fu talismans were used by medieval Chinese for alleviating illness; averting misfortune, magical attacks, and curses; defending against assaults; and avoiding poverty. This book shows Western practitioners that the skill and knowledge to develop an interactive relationship with spirit realms are still available to them today, and serves as a practical handbook for accumulating Qi energy from sources in the environment and channeling it in concentrated form into their own Fu talismans.




Navigating Aseannovation: The Reservoir Principle And Other Essays On Startups And Innovation In Southeast Asia


Book Description

Southeast Asia has been an emerging frontier for internet technology startups, with talent and capital flooding into the region's technology markets in recent years. Navigating ASEANnovation: The Reservoir Principle and other essays on startups and innovation in Southeast Asia is a collection of essays and interviews with founders and investors on what it takes to thrive and win in the region as a tech startup. From topics such as bringing together a founding team to exiting a company, the collection covers various aspects of startup growth, digging deep into the critical strategies tech founders and business leaders of different countries and industries can adopt, while embracing the diversity critical to understanding the region.Navigating ASEANnovation serves as go-to compendium providing practical advice and mental frameworks for anyone interested in Southeast Asia and tech startups, highlighting the unique aspects of operating in the region that the world can learn from as well.The collection was curated with commentary from Yinglan Tan, Founding Managing Partner of Insignia Ventures Partners, an early stage technology venture fund in Southeast Asia, and Paulo Joquiño, Editor of Insignia Business Review, the official publication of Insignia Ventures Partners.