101 bite-sized lessions in building a business from ignition to liquidity event (start-up to sale) by Dave Berkus, an internationally recognized business expert, author and keynote speaker. Graduate with your degree in BERKONOMICS, and use these insights to drive your growth and business success. Use separate workbook to create your own personalized guide for corporate growth. www.berkonomics.com, www.berkus.com.
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.
How to Ruin Your Life is a powerful self-help tool in the form of a work of humor. It is sardonic advice, presented with tongue in cheek, explaining how people can ''ruin' their lives. The essays cover topics such as ''Convince Yourself That Youre All That Matters,' Think the Worst of Everyone,' ''Pour Salt on Those Wounds,' and ''You Can Change People.' Seriously, though, to anyone who reads this book, it is an earnest warning about falling into traps of self-destructive behavior that can ruin any man or womans life. More than that, it comprises 35 steps that - if read and understood - provide a road map to making life work in the most effective way possible. It is humor and self-help all in one, delivered by Ben Stein, a man who has witnessed more than his share of people who did ruin their lives - as well as those whose lives have been wildly successful.
Every day, Rob Adams helps entrepreneurs find true markets for their products, design solid business models, and hire great teams—because that’s what it takes to build a successful company. While this sounds self-evident, far too many entrepreneurs have forgotten these fundamentals. They’ve been influenced by what Adams calls “business porn,” myths lingering like a bad hangover from the easy success days of the late ’90s. These entrepreneurs believe a unique idea is the key to igniting a great business. They think their industry experience already makes them experts on customer needs. They have simplistic, self-defeating illusions about sales, marketing, financing, and more. They say things like “I have a million-dollar business idea for a new product.” Wake up, says Adams: Good ideas are not scarce—they’re a dime a dozen. Businesses are successful not because of a unique idea but because of extraordinary execution. They offer a better, faster, or cheaper product or service, or they change the way the world solves a problem. In short, these entrepreneurs need just what Adams doses out in the pages of this book: a good hard kick in the ass. Adams debunks the myths and smashes the illusions—and he knows what he’s talking about, because he stands at the hub of many new startups. His firm, AV Labs, provides entrepreneurs with early financing as well as the management expertise they need to get off the ground. A Good Hard Kick in the Ass offers detailed, hard-hitting guidance for smart, sophisticated entrepreneurs and established businesspeople alike—along with vivid, in-depth examples of companies that are walking the walk right now. Adams’s straightforward, no-nonsense approach is just what’s needed in the post-bubble economy. From the Hardcover edition.
Anyone can write a book about how to get rich. The bookstores are full of them. They rarely work, though, which isn't suprising since the people who write them rarely know much about money. But it takes Ben Stein, economist, finance expert for Barron's, commentator on finance for Fox News, and (fairly) successful investor to write a book called How to Ruin Your Fiancial Life. This book is a humorous road map showing you how to make something useful of the money that comes in and out of your life. Follow the rules-in reverse gear-and you're bound to be a lot beter off than you are now. Follow the rules as they're written-and you're highly likely to wind up in bankruptcy court-as million do every decade.
The Barefoot Retirement Plan reveals a little-known, 150 year old proven retirement planning strategy that quite simply, beats the pants off other plans. That’s why many are calling this non-traditional plan, “America’s Most Powerful Retirement Plan.” Less than .01% have even heard of this patent pending plan. The rich have quietly been using variations of this plan for over a century. Large corporations, banks and financial institutions own hundreds of billions worth of these plans. The reason some of the brightest minds in the world invest so heavily in these strategies is because, they work! If you’re like the majority of Americans who have been faithfully following the mainstream traditional investment advice, and relying on your IRA (Individual Retirement Account) or 401(k) to reach your retirement goals, you’re probably very concerned about having enough funds to last throughout retirement. 61% of Americans fear running out of money during retirement, more than they fear death. It doesn't have to be that way. This plan can help you to look forward to retirement, instead of dreading it. We’re giving away our custom retirement savings calculator for free. In our opinion, it’s the best retirement calculator out there. It visually shows you the power of this plan compared to your current retirement plan, IRA, ROTH, 401(k), etc. You can get your free Barefoot Retirement calculator at: BarefootRetirement.com/calculator This is not just another boring financial book. It’s written in layman’s terms and you will find lots of images and charts to help you clearly grasp the concepts. This book will show you how you can create a retirement plan that offers: • 100% tax-free retirement income • Life-time, tax-free, predictable income that lasts as long as you do • Single most powerful tax strategy that’s legally allowed in this great country • Completely private and requires no reporting • Guarantees you will not lose money due to market declines • Liquid, flexible and easy to use • Creditor proof in most states • No investment restrictions • The best way to stock-pile cash and build wealth, tax-free and take less risk • No contribution limits, pending qualifications • No distribution penalties • Leverage options to earn TWICE on the same funds • Lowest fees you will find anywhere • You’ll discover how this plan has much less risk than traditional plans You will not find a better retirement plan anywhere!
The easy way to get started in crowdfund investing Crowdfund investing (CFI) is going to be the next big thing on Wall Street. U.S. investment banks, brokerage houses, and law firms are gearing up for the creation and regulation of new financial products that will be available to the general public starting in early 2013. The introduction of these products will revolutionize the financing of small businesses and startups for these key reasons: Entrepreneurs and small business owners, who have had difficulty obtaining capital through traditional means (such as bank loans and angel investors) in recent years, will have access to investors around the world through social media. For the first time, investors (so-called unqualified investors) will be able to purchase an equity stake in a business or new investment vehicle. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is overseeing the creation of online portals that will allow entrepreneurs and small investors to connect. When these portals go live in 2013, Crowdfund Investing For Dummies will be on the front line to educate business owners, other entrepreneurs, and investors alike. Crowdfund Investing For Dummies will walk entrepreneurs and investors, like yourself, through this new investing experience, beginning with explaining how and why CFI developed and what the 2012 JOBS says about CFI. Entrepreneurs will find out how much funding they can realistically raise through CFI; how to plan and launch a CFI campaign; how to manage the crowd after a campaign is successful; and how to work within the SEC’s regulations at every stage. Investors will discover: the benefits and risks of CFI ;how much they can invest; how a CFI investment may fit into a broader investment portfolio; how to provide value to the business or project being funded; and how to bow out of an investment when the time is right. Crowdfund Investing For Dummies is an indispensable resource for long time investors and novice investors alike.
"A former hedge-fund trader presents a memoir about coming of age on Wall Street, his obsessive pursuit of money, his disillusionment and the radical new way he has come to define success, "--NoveList