Boring Businesses That Make a Lot of Money


Book Description

Have you ever wondered how some businesses, seemingly mundane and overlooked, manage to generate substantial wealth? The Secret to Wealth Lies in the 'Boring' Business reveals that the most profitable and stable ventures are often not the glamorous or high-tech ones, but rather the essential and overlooked businesses that keep the world running smoothly. In this book, you'll discover how industries like vending machines, self-storage units, parking lots, funeral services, and more offer lucrative and reliable income streams. By diving into these 'boring' businesses, you'll learn how they provide consistent returns and why they are key to long-term financial stability. Uncover the true potential of these often-underestimated business models and find out why sometimes, the path to financial success is through opportunities that others overlook.




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.




Buy Then Build


Book Description

Entrepreneurs have a problem: startups. Almost all startups either fail or never truly reach a sustainable size. Despite the popularity of entrepreneurship, we haven't engineered a better way to start...until now. What if you could skip the startup phase and generate profitable revenue on day one? In BUY THEN BUILD, acquisition entrepreneur Walker Deibel shows you how to begin with a sustainable, profitable company and grow from there. You'll learn how to: Buy an existing company rather than starting from scratch Use ownership as a path to financial independence Spend a fraction of the time raising capital Find great brokers, generate your own "deal flow," and see new listings early Uncover the best opportunities and biggest risks of any company Navigate the acquisition process Become a successful acquisition entrepreneur And more BUY THEN BUILD is your guide to outsmart the startup game, live the entrepreneurial lifestyle, and reap the financial rewards of ownership now.




Smarter, Faster, Cheaper


Book Description

Save time and money in building, marketing and promoting your business With huge recent shifts in the way enterprises are built, marketed, and monetized, these are "wild west" times for business. In this new landscape, entrepreneurs and small business owners actually have an edge in marketing without spinning their wheels or going broke. Smarter, Faster, Cheaper gives you an innovative, approachable new guide on how to market, promote and improve your business drawing on real world examples and offering practical advice as opposed to fluffy theory. It presents a complete roadmap for marketing and promoting your business with the latest techniques. Draws from author David Siteman Garland's extensive experiences as a successful entrepreneur Based on countless interviews with successful leaders, including conversations with entrepreneurs and owners of businesses large and small Strategies and ideas are easy to understand, digest, and immediately put to use From learning when to skimp and when to splurge to mastering the art of online schmoozing, Smarter, Faster, Cheaper will save you time, money, and aggravation whether you're building your tenth business or your first.




Ask a Manager


Book Description

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together




HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business


Book Description

An all-in-one guide to helping you buy and own your own business. Are you looking for an alternative to a career path at a big firm? Does founding your own start-up seem too risky? There is a radical third path open to you: You can buy a small business and run it as CEO. Purchasing a small company offers significant financial rewards—as well as personal and professional fulfillment. Leading a firm means you can be your own boss, put your executive skills to work, fashion a company environment that meets your own needs, and profit directly from your success. But finding the right business to buy and closing the deal isn't always easy. In the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business, Harvard Business School professors Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff help you: Determine if this path is right for you Raise capital for your acquisition Find and evaluate the right prospects Avoid the pitfalls that could derail your search Understand why a "dull" business might be the best investment Negotiate a potential deal with the seller Avoid deals that fall through at the last minute Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.




Cold Hard Truth


Book Description

Kevin O’Leary shares invaluable secrets on entrepreneurship, business, money and life. Can you make millions just by “visualizing yourself rich” as some business prophets suggest? Don’t buy it, says Kevin O’Leary. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur and amass wealth, you’re going to have to work for it. But the good news is: with the right guidance, focus and perseverance, you can turn entrepreneurial vision into lucrative reality and have the personal freedom that only wealth can buy. Kevin O’Leary would know. The much-feared and revered Dragon on the immensely popular show Dragons’ Den (and Shark Tank in the U.S.) started his company in his basement with a $10,000 loan from his financially savvy mother. A few years later, Kevin sold that company for more than four billion dollars. In this compelling, candid and, above all else, brutally honest business memoir, Kevin provides engaging, practical advice and lessons that will give anyone a distinct competitive edge.




Invest Local


Book Description

Invest Local is a peek into the experience of local deal-making expert David Barnett. His experience and education in business brokerage, small business financing and private finance deals gives him an insight into what's wrong with the common financial planning advice available today and how you can make higher investment returns while reducing risk and helping your local community. This is not a book about social enterprises or charity. This is a book which guides you on how to find and obtain superior returns in the community where you live, without paying fees to the financial industry. Barnett offers step-by-step guidance on how to earn returns ranging from 9% to infinity by doing car leases, secured loans, inventory financing, buying accounts receivables, financing mini and mobile homes, operating leases on machinery and more. High yield investing does not have to mean high-risk investing.




100 Side Hustles


Book Description

Best-selling author Chris Guillebeau presents a full-color ideabook featuring 100 stories of regular people launching successful side businesses that almost anyone can do. This unique guide features the startup stories of regular people launching side businesses that almost anyone can do: an urban tour guide, an artist inspired by maps, a travel site founder, an ice pop maker, a confetti photographer, a group of friends who sell hammocks to support local economies, and many more. In 100 Side Hustles, best-selling author of The $100 Startup Chris Guillebeau presents a colorful "idea book" filled with inspiration for your next big idea. Distilled from Guillebeau's popular Side Hustle School podcast, these case studies feature teachers, artists, coders, and even entire families who've found ways to create new sources of income. With insights, takeaways, and photography that reveals the human element behind the hustles, this playbook covers every important step of launching a side hustle, from identifying underserved markets to crafting unique products and services that spring from your passions. Soon you'll find yourself joining the ranks of these innovative entrepreneurs--making money on the side while living your best life.




Strong Towns


Book Description

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.