That’s it. You’ve had enough. Enough of taking nonsense directions. Enough overtime because of someone’s poor planning. Enough phone calls on your days off and interruptions that could’ve waited. You’ve had it, and you’ve decided that it’s time to be your own boss.
So how can you do this entrepreneurial thing without falling flat on a (flattened) checkbook? You can begin with these two books...
“Fifteen years ago,” author Bill Aulet begins, “... I was asked to lead a core entrepreneurship course at MIT...” He planned on using comprehensive book on startups, but “there was no such book,” he says, and so he wrote one.
This “expanded & updated” version of “Disciplined Entrepreneurship” begins with baby steps and a way to understand the mythology, terminology, CEO-level concerns and real mindsets one will need to be successful.
While “Disciplined Entrepreneurship” may sometimes feel lighthearted, don’t let its cartoon drawings fool you. Almost immediately after the preface, Aulet leaps into his step-by-step methodology, which is serious stuff. It almost feels like a textbook, at this point, sans the end-of-chapter quizzes. Class clowns are not welcome from here, forward.
Once you have read and absorbed “Disciplined Entrepreneurship” and read it again so it’s implanted solidly in your head, you might then feel confident enough to move on to “Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics” by Paul Cheek.
Like its predecessor, this book contains cartoons for levity but the seriousness continues, picking up where Aulet’s book ends. The information you learn in Aulet’s book is essential to the understanding of “Startup Tactics,” with the latter as more of a get-to-work kind of book, with “stages” and “workbook” sidebars. Smart readers will probably want to bring a notebook to take notes when they tackle “Startup Tactics.”
Cheek takes readers through the next steps here, including in-depth marketing, understanding advertising like a pro, finding a designer and making sales. There’s even a chapter to get you thinking about hiring a competent lawyer to take care of the paperwork that you’ll inevitably need done.
Cheek also takes readers on a walk through the financial aspects of a business with a nice list of “tools of the trade” and other financial subjects you’ll need to consider as a new CEO – including ways to fund-raise, if that’s the direction you have planned. Those end-of-chapter sidebars exist after every chapter, but you’ll need some of them more than others and at different times, by the way.
Also – and this is essential; don’t let the work scare you away – think of reading these books as a way to separate the serious entrepreneur from the wanna-be.
Beyond that, keep in mind that having these books is a serious investment in yourself. You will want to buy both, read them in order and keep them nearby so you can refer to them often.
For the person with determination and patience to grow a business, these books could be enough.
Terri Schlichenmeyer’s reviews of business books are read in more than 260 publications in the U.S. and Canada.