From Idea to Success: The Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network Guide for Start-Ups


Book Description

Turn Your Great Idea into a Thriving Business! “A guide that sets first-time entrepreneurs’ feet in the right direction.” Geoffrey Moore, author, Crossing the Chasm “There are many books on entrepreneurship, but this is one of the few that will convert individuals to entrepreneurs.” Desh Deshpande, founder, Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, MIT; chairman, A123 Systems; cochair, National Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship About the Book: Are you among the many Americans who dream of starting a business but think you don’t know how? Help has arrived . . . For generations, Dartmouth College and the Tuck School of Business have influenced and driven global entrepreneurship. Dartmouth firsts include the world petroleum industry, technological breakthroughs like artificial intelligence and BASIC computer language, as well as popular products, such as the Nerf football and the game Crainium. Today a key resource for the Dartmouth Community is the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network (DEN), which helps anyone from undergraduates to faculty to alumni get their ideas off the ground and into the marketplace. In From Idea to Success, entrepreneur, professor, and DEN founder Gregg Fairbrothers takes you step by proven step through the DEN approach, showing you how to apply the same principles to make your vision a reality. If you have an idea—any idea—from major technology innovations, to consumer products or services, to social enterprises, From Idea to Success shows you how to bring it to fruition. This A to Z guide based on the startup experiences of literally hundreds of entrepreneurs makes the process simple as possible by breaking it down into three distinct parts: Step 1: Focusing and Refining Your Idea Define your goals, pinpoint your market, protect your idea, manage the risks in your undertaking Step 2: Business Planning Best Practices Create a business plan, build your team, learn about the competition, raise finances, get the important legal issues right the first time Step 3: Managing Your Company Build your negotiating, selling, and decision-making skills; manage your finances; correct your course; manage the transition to a healthy, growing business Building a vibrant company based on your own creativity and hard work is one of the most fulfilling human enterprises there is. With this book and your own experience you can think and act like a successful entrepreneur from the very start.




Start a Successful Business


Book Description

With stories and advice from a fleet of trusted experts, this book is for anyone wishing to get their business off the ground and become the next wildly successful entrepreneur everyone is reading about. For decades, makers, doers, and dreamers have turned to Inc. for help in getting their businesses off the ground. The insanely successful entrepreneurs behind organizations like Skullcandy, Spanx, Elon Musk, and Airbnb learned lessons at every stage, experienced unexpected setbacks, and in the end triumphed wildly. All along, Inc. was there capturing it all so that others could experience even greater successes than these titans of business. From brainstorming to crowdfunding to building partnerships, the book walks new and aspiring founders through seven crucial stages, including: Establishing a brilliant business idea Selecting the best structure and strategy for your startup Getting the word out and building clientele Preparing to go global Learn how Elon Musk stays wildly productive. Discover how Sarah Blakely got the inspiration for Spanx. Read the stories of how a hashtag accelerated Airbnb’s success and how Warby Parker shook up the eyewear industry with its innovative, socially conscious business model. Start a Successful Business gathers these important lessons into a single path-charting guide.




How They Started


Book Description

Lots of us have ideas we think would make great businesses. Most of us never do anything with those ideas. But for those that do, a world of opportunity awaits them. This book is about 30 people who acted on their idea, made the first steps to start their business and subsequently went on to turn it into a global brand. From Innocent to Cobra to Dreams to Dysone, we reveal how some of the UK's biggest businesses got of the ground, and those very first steps taken by their founders.




From Idea to Launch


Book Description

If you have been nurturing a Great Idea and wondered how to Launch a Brand, how to Launch a Product or about Launching a Venture, this is the Book for you. I wrote this book because, like you, the best ideas come to you as a way to fill some unmet need in your life. "Necessity is the mother of all invention" is never truer than when you brilliantly think up an innovation, invention, or service that will make your life easier, more fun, or is just plain smart. I was standing in my kitchen after going through my usual morning routine one mundane Monday when inspiration hit me. I cannot go into great detail about my invention because I have sold it, and it now belongs to a larger company. Due to an NDA that is currently in place, I don't even know if that company is utilizing my invention. I thought to myself that if someone could create this certain thing that it would make my life a whole lot easier. I would really use this and spend good money on this if someone thought to create it. That "someone" was me! Why couldn't I create a fantastic item that would make my life better and make money doing it? This book begins right where it should -at the birth of an idea. Even the best authors get writer's block, and the best inventors lose their muse, so I thought it only appropriate to start at the very beginning. I will teach you how to stimulate your creativity, brainstorm ideas, and finally locate a sustainable and realistic product that will become your invention. Then, we move onto what it takes to bring that idea to life, crafting prototypes, locating manufacturers, enlisting the help of carpenters, tech developers, and anyone who can assist in creating the physical adaption of your idea. I wanted to not only help you think of something that you can create, but also push you to create it, and then sell it. After all, we innovators only create so that others can utilize our creations, right? This is why I dedicated a great portion of this book to also help you sell your idea. I've included the most in-depth research for social media marketing, brand development, package designing, and so much more to help you deliver the total package. During my time as an inventor, I have come across too many innovators who have sat on an idea, waiting for the right time to start. Inventors who did their best to share their products with the world, only to miss the mark in their marketing strategies and fail. Creators who lost the rights to their work because they didn't know how to secure legal protection. In this book, you will find the answers to all of your questions. It is the complete roadmap that will undoubtedly guide your product to success. This book will teach you absolutely everything you need to know about: Creating Prototypes Building a Band Around your Product Protecting your Intellectual Property and Plans Selling Your Idea for a Profit ...and so much more. I have no doubt in my mind that if you follow the advice detailed within these pages that you will see your idea through all the way to launch. What are you waiting for? Your destiny awaits as I am sure you are sitting on an idea that will be the "Next Big Thing." click "Add to Cart" now!




Entrepreneurial Leap


Book Description

You've thought about starting your own business . . . but how can you decide if you should really take the leap? There's a lot on the line, and you have to ask yourself difficult questions: Do I have what it takes? Is it worth it? And how the hell do I do it? You need answers, not bullshit. This book has them. Entrepreneurial Leap: Do You Have What it Takes to Become an Entrepreneur? is an easy-to-use guide that will help you decide, once and for all, if entrepreneurship is right for you—because success as an entrepreneur depends on far more than just a great idea and a generous helping of luck. In this three-part book, Gino Wickman, bestselling author of Traction, reveals the six essential traits that every entrepreneur needs in order to succeed, based on real-world startups that have reached incredible heights. If these traits ring true for you, you'll get a glimpse of what your life would look like as an entrepreneur. What's more, Wickman will help you determine what type of business best suits your unique skill set and provide a detailed roadmap, with tools, tips, and exercises, that will accelerate your path to startup success. Packed with real-life stories and practical advice, Entrepreneurial Leap is a simple how-to manual for BIG results. Should you take the leap toward entrepreneurship? Find out today and let tomorrow be the first step in your new journey, whatever shape it may take.




Made to Stick


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The instant classic about why some ideas thrive, why others die, and how to make your ideas stick. “Anyone interested in influencing others—to buy, to vote, to learn, to diet, to give to charity or to start a revolution—can learn from this book.”—The Washington Post Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus news stories circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas—entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists—struggle to make them “stick.” In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony—draw their power from the same six traits. Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice. Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas—and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.




The Business Idea Factory


Book Description

The Business Idea Factory is an effective and easy-to-use system for creating successful business ideas. It is based on 10 years of research into idea-generation techniques used by the world's best scientists, artists, CEOs, entrepreneurs and innovators. The book is entertaining to read, has plenty of stories and offers bits of wisdom necessary to increase the quantity and quality of ideas that you create multiple times. Once you begin applying strategies described in this book, you will create successful business ideas regularly and make your life more adventurous. You will realize that there are few things that can bring as much joy and success in business as the moment when an excellent idea comes to your head.




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.







The Entrepreneur's Journey: From Idea to Success


Book Description

Are you an aspiring entrepreneur looking to turn your idea into a successful business? Or are you already on the journey but facing challenges and setbacks along the way? In "The Entrepreneur's Journey: From Idea to Success," you'll gain valuable insights and lessons learned from successful entrepreneurs who have navigated the highs and lows of building a business. Through engaging stories and practical advice, this book takes you through the stages of the entrepreneurial journey, from ideation to product development, marketing, sales, and beyond. You'll learn about the importance of resilience, perseverance, and adaptability, as well as strategies for building a strong team and securing funding. Whether you're a first-time founder or a seasoned entrepreneur, "The Entrepreneur's Journey" will provide you with the inspiration, guidance, and tools you need to succeed. Don't let the challenges of building a business hold you back. Join the thousands of successful entrepreneurs who have transformed their ideas into reality and become leaders in their industries.