Best Starting a Business
This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. "The Lean Startup has a kind of inexorable logic, and Ries’ recommendations come as a bracing slap in the face to would-be tech moguls: Test your ideas before you bet the bank on them. —Mitchell Kapor, Founder, Lotus Development Corp. "At Asana, we've been lucky to benefit from Eric's advice firsthand; this book will enable him to help many more entrepreneurs answer the tough questions about their business." —Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook and Asana “Ries' splendid book is the essential template to understand the crucial leadership challenge of our time: initiating and managing growth!” —Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California and author of the recently published, Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership. ". — Tim O'Reilly, CEO O'Reilly Media “Eric Ries unravels the mysteries of entrepreneurship and reveals that magic and genius are not the necessary ingredients for success but instead proposes a scientific process that can be learnt and replicated. Ries's ‘read and react’ approach to this sport, his relentless focus on validated learning, the never-ending anxiety of hovering between ‘persevere’ and ‘pivot’, all bear witness to his appreciation for the dynamics of entrepreneurship." —Randy Komisar, founding director of TiVo and author of the bestselling The Monk and the Riddle “How do you apply the 50 year old ideas of Lean to the fast-paced, high uncertainty world of Startups? It provides actionable ways to avoid product-learning mistakes, rigorously evaluate early signals from the market through validated learning, and decide whether to persevere or to pivot, all challenges that heighten the chance of entrepreneurial failure.” —Professor Noam Wasserman, Harvard Business School “One of the best and most insightful new books on entrepreneurship and management I’ve ever read. Seriously stop and read this book now.” —Scott Case, CEO Startup America Partnership “In business, a ‘lean’ enterprise is sustainable efficiency in action. Eric Ries’ revolutionary Lean Startup method will help bring your new business idea to an end result that is successful and sustainable. These tools will help organizations large and small to sustain innovation by effectively leveraging the time, passion, and skill of their talent pools.” — Andrea Goldsmith, professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and cofounder of several startups “Business is too important to be left to luck. This book is the guided tour of the key innovative practices used inside Google, Toyota, and Facebook, that work in any business.” — Scott Cook, Founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit. —Mitchell Kapor, Founder, Lotus Development Corp. "At Asana, we've been lucky to benefit from Eric's advice firsthand; this book will enable him to help many more entrepreneurs answer the tough questions about their business." —Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook and Asana “Ries' splendid book is the essential template to understand the crucial leadership challenge of our time: initiating and managing growth!” —Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California and author of the recently published, Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership. ". — Tim O'Reilly, CEO O'Reilly Media “Eric Ries unravels the mysteries of entrepreneurship and reveals that magic and genius are not the necessary ingredients for success but instead proposes a scientific process that can be learnt and replicated. Ries's ‘read and react’ approach to this sport, his relentless focus on validated learning, the never-ending anxiety of hovering between ‘persevere’ and ‘pivot’, all bear witness to his appreciation for the dynamics of entrepreneurship." —Randy Komisar, founding director of TiVo and author of the bestselling The Monk and the Riddle “How do you apply the 50 year old ideas of Lean to the fast-paced, high uncertainty world of Startups? It provides actionable ways to avoid product-learning mistakes, rigorously evaluate early signals from the market through validated learning, and decide whether to persevere or to pivot, all challenges that heighten the chance of entrepreneurial failure.” —Professor Noam Wasserman, Harvard Business School “One of the best and most insightful new books on entrepreneurship and management I’ve ever read. Seriously stop and read this book now.” —Scott Case, CEO Startup America Partnership “In business, a ‘lean’ enterprise is sustainable efficiency in action. These tools will help organizations large and small to sustain innovation by effectively leveraging the time, passion, and skill of their talent pools.” — Andrea Goldsmith, professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and cofounder of several startups “Business is too important to be left to luck. This book is the guided tour of the key innovative practices used inside Google, Toyota, and Facebook, that work in any business.” — Scott Cook, Founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Some tired advice and some same-ish stories of business ideas and execution that appear in a lot of these business books."
"This is an amazing book on innovation and getting your ideas into an MVP quickly."
"That said, if you want more of the HOW TOs of Lean Startup, I'm currently reading both Steve Blank's The Startup Owners Manual and Ash Maurya's Running Lean, and while I'm not finished with either of them yet, I can definitely tell you they take Eric's teachings to the next level -- and then some."
"If I can ding the book for one thing it might be the author's insistence on a majority of anecdotes that are about Silicon Valley startups that deal primarily in non-inventory businesses. It's wonderful as a concept to imagine cohort testing in a brick-and-mortar situation, but the book does not do a great job explaining how one might go about that, for something like that an actual class on market entry or entrepreneurship in general would help."
"In fact, hardware is hard and my research hasn't found anything remotely useful in applying lean start-up principles to hardware. Diarrhea of the word processor resulted in a 365 page definition of a lean start-up, where it could have been boiled down to less than 100 pages (minus 1-star for waste...Distill it down to an A3 using Lean Thinking). (Minus 1-star: As a hardware guy and having extensive experience in lean it's blatantly obvious Ries is just starting his lean journey and his last section (Accelerate) is superficial, survey, regurgitation of some of the lean tools and ideas). Reference More Actionable Books: Running Lean - Ash Maurya. Art of the Start (Ch.1) - Guy Kawasaki. Reference Free Material: Steve Blank's Website & Blog. Simon Sinek - Start with Why."
"No need to waste your time on 350 pages while the author has one point repeated over and over: test your assumptions with a minimum viable product as early as possible instead of waiting to develop the "perfect" product that you have in your mind."
In Zero to One , legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things. Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places. What Thiel is after is the revitalization of imagination and invention writ large…" – The New Republic "Might be the best business book I've read...Barely 200 pages long and well lit by clear prose and pithy aphorisms, Thiel has written a perfectly tweetable treatise and a relentlessly thought-provoking handbook." “ This book delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world.” - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook “Peter Thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and Zero to One shows how.” - Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. In the case of Peter Thiel, read it twice. This is a classic.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan “Thiel has drawn upon his wide-ranging and idiosyncratic readings in philosophy, history, economics, anthropology, and culture to become perhaps America’s leading public intellectual today” - Fortune "Peter Thiel, in addition to being an accomplished entrepreneur and investor, is also one of the leading public intellectuals of our time. He started the Thiel Fellowship, which ignited a national debate by encouraging young people to put learning before schooling, and he leads the Thiel Foundation, which works to advance technological progress and long- term thinking about the future.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"For example "we never invest in entrepreneurs who turn up for the interview in a suit" or "four of the founders of PayPal had built bombs as children." Memo to Peter Thiel: you are successful despite your prejudice against people who don't share your sartorial taste, and your partners made it to adulthood despite having been poorly supervised as children. He was not beaten by a better provider of software, he was superseded by a shift in technology toward powerful mobile devices, tablets and the cloud, all of which, in turn, were motivated by other entrepreneurs' desire to obtain monopoly profits. So Steve Jobs dominated many of these arenas for long enough to enjoy monopoly profits and other people will some day take this all further. Even the government is in on the act, Peter Thiel claims, or else it would not be granting patents to inventors or freedom from competition from generic drugs to the pharmaceutical companies that first develop new medications. My mom taught me that "necessity is the mother of invention:" GM did not develop the Volt till it was up against the wall, Archimedes discovered how to screw water upwards during the Roman siege of Syracuse, the Germans developed jet propulsion, the swept wing and the rocket we later sent to the moon when they had pretty much already lost WWII. And then we have the cases where, as the author says, it's clear that you need to incentivize people to innovate (drugs spring to mind, where the US has a lead) and that's where patents come in. And it was crystal clear to everybody with a modicum of common sense that both Intel and Microsoft were not helping the world along when they used dirty tricks to hurt AMD and Netscape. The author takes us on a (rather gratuitous) trip from Plato and Aristotle to Nozick and Rawls via Epicurus, Lucretius, Hegel and Marx to discuss when optimism is and isn't warranted and the bottom line is that you're only allowed to be an optimist if you have "definite optimism" based on a specific Design (my capital D) for a business. Peter Thiel takes a massive swipe at the Malcolm Gladwells of the world who overemphasize chance, serendipity and fate with facile arguments about the similarity in Steve Jobs' and Bill Gates' birthdates. It's the Nassim Nicholas Taleb idea, and he duly appears on the back cover to endorse the book. For the best book on the subject I'd swerve around NNT's work and turn to Benoit Mandelbrot's masterpiece, "The (Mis)behaviour of Markets." The fourth idea is no more original, but Thiel puts it well: "there are many more secrets left to find, but they will yield only to relentless searchers." The fifth idea is you need to pick your partners i.e. your investors, your fellow managers and your (ideally 3) directors very carefully in order to make sure you all want the same thing out of the company (and it had better not be immediate rewards). But once they have their first billion and don't need to run their ideas by anyone else to get them funded they very often go do something stupid (dunno, like go mine asteroids) with exactly the same fervour they previously applied to the sensible endeavour that made them rich. The more grounded ones keep their further investments close to home and direct their creativity toward giving lectures and writing books."
"Along with business strategy, Thiel outlines how successful innovation shapes society and shares an intriguing vision. Rather than offer scripts or formulas, Thiel discusses the logic of starting a company that will make a truly meaningful and unique impact on the world. Blake did a great job of adapting and presenting the contents, many of which were delivered when Thiel taught at Stanford. Keeping in mind that companies growing 1000x often carry entire portfolios, Peter gives a good argument for successful moonshots and grand visions. He also highlights the dangers of trying to disrupt entrenched competitors and avoid extra resistance and burn rates on marketing. Rather, Tesla began by making powertrains, then started with high end luxury models to which no solid alternative existed. His strong argument for monopolies are both for novelty and to develop early market dominance should competitors arise later. I found a Monopoly Index by Forbes that showed these types of companies outperforming the Dow and S&P by 33%, which was a pleasant result of some due diligence. Even if you make a product that’s a 3x improvement over a market leader, you aren’t creating anything truly new, and well funded competitors are likely to catch up. It looks at economics, globalization, artificial intelligence, and historical trends along with founder characteristics and the qualities of great salespeople. If you like diving really deep into the mind of a founder across many life experiences, check out Tony Hseih’s Delivering Happiness."
Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. Though Horowitz is a cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and his credentials reside mainly in Silicon Valley, he’s imparted some valuable insight on hard lessons learned that apply to any manager, whether in the executive suite or not. --Barbara Jacobs “More than any other business book released this year, “Hard Things” gives an insider’s perspective on what it’s like to lead and scale a startup.” (--Business Insider's Best Business Books of 2014). “This is easily one of the essential books every business leader should read if they’re looking for proven and honest management advice.” (--Entrepreneur's 25 Amazing Business Books from 2014).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare. “People often ask me how we’ve managed to work efficiently across three companies over eighteen years. Either people challenge each other to the point where they don’t like each other or they become complacent about each other’s feedback and no longer benefit from the relationship. With Marc and me, even after eighteen years, he upsets me almost every day by finding something wrong with my thinking, and I do the same for hi. But as I watched my peers’ fantastic, amazing businesses go bankrupt and sell for cheap, I realized I was probably not the only one struggling.” […] “Embrace your weirdness, your background, your instinct."
"Based on the tremendous amount of good reviews I expected greatness."
"The core of the book is the first three chapters in which Ben describes his career with particular details on the founding and management of LoudCloud, which became Opsware under his management. The rest of the book contains the lessons he has learned from the experience. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is not a book glorifying the CEO role, talking only about the successes."
"In the end, it's the leaders who are responsible for creating the work environment and culture."
"He gives thoughtful advice for any CEO, founder or member of a leadership team on how to hire talent, manage culture, navigate crisis with grace and how to inspire people during tough times."
"Great book, and actually pretty interesting reading for a business book."
"If you want to get inspired to pursue a business, or figure out how to anticipate the future of your industry and capitalize on it, don't read this."
Best Business Technology Innovation
Vance spent over 40 hours in conversation with Musk and interviewed close to 300 people to tell the tumultuous stories of Musk's world-changing companies: PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity, and to characterize a man who has renewed American industry and sparked new levels of innovation while making plenty of enemies along the way. "Ashlee Vance's new book, 'Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,' is a tremendous look into arguably the world's most important entrepreneur. Vance paints an unforgettable picture of Musk's unique personality, insatiable drive and ability to thrive through hardship." "Vance's lively book yields all manner of fascinating insights about Musk's companies, his vision, and his personal life." - Whitney Tilson Founder, Kase Capital Management There are few industrialists in history who could match Elon Musk's relentless drive and ingenious vision. A modern alloy of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs, Musk is the man behind PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity, each of which has sent shock waves throughout American business and industry. More than any other executive today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as a science fiction fantasy. In this lively, investigative account, veteran technology journalist Ashlee Vance offers an unprecedented look into the remarkable life and times of Silicon Valley's most audacious businessman. Written with exclusive access to Musk, his family, and his friends, the book traces his journey from his difficult upbringing in South Africa to his ascent to the pinnacle of the global business world. In 1992, Elon Musk arrived in the United States as a ferociously driven immigrant bent on realizing his wildest dreams. After being forced out of PayPal, fending off a life-threatening case of malaria, and dealing with the death of his infant son, Musk abandoned Silicon Valley for Los Angeles. At a time when many American companies are more interested in chasing easy money than in taking bold risks on radical new technology, Musk stands out as the only businessman with enough dynamism and vision to tackle--and even revolutionize--three industries at once. Vance makes the case that Musk's success heralds a return to the original ambition and invention that made America an economic and intellectual powerhouse.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"2 pages in, I decided I was in this for the long haul and sat on the floor, right there in the middle of the store. Because as you experience the story, as you see the challenges Musk went through to reach the pinnacle he's at today, the question nags at you. Musk isn't soft-spoken, or easy on his employees, or a man who kicks his legs up on his desk and snoozes while his companies mill around him. Vance shows how Musk is both the CEO and an employee of his companies, simultaneously the teacher and student. Vance takes you deep into the details, from Musk's childhood and lineage in South Africa, all the way to Canada and the United States, where the bulk of the story unfolds. When Musk looks at big businesses, he sees unmovable behemoths that refuse to change their methodologies. So we follow Musk's journey from his small start-ups, Zip2 and X.com, and move into his larger, more permanent ventures, namely SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Did you know SpaceX tested these rockets on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and would fix problems they encountered in a matter of days, as compared to months by standard companies? I'm going to reread this book in a few weeks (probably after the scheduled June 19th third Falcon 9 landing attempt, this time on solid ground, as opposed to a barge). Anyone who wants a ridiculously thorough insight into Elon Musk's life and companies should read this book. This is an incredibly inspiring book, a important look into a game-changing business strategy, and a valuable lesson to the world."
"I loved the insight into Musk and how he operates, and you get a very broad and complete picture of Musk as a driven visionary that is absolutely set on delivering some of the most aspirational goals of any human in history. You also get some great insight into the overall ecosystem around Musk - his companies (SpaceX and Tesla primarily), relationships with other companies and gov entities, as well as the important people around him."
"This willingness to commit all his resources, sacrificing family time, risking bankruptcy is the necessary driver to striking it rich and making a lasting mark on history. But his true gift is shown in recognizing future trends, motivating people to work like slaves and like Steve Jobs a fanatical attention to detail and making the little things better."
Best Service Industry
So says Mike Michalowicz, author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, a business book that is so uniquely useful, so raw and entertaining, it reads like the brainchild of Steve Jobs and Chris Rock. Whether you're just starting out or have been at this for years, Mike's "get real" approach to business is a much-needed swift kick in the pants. "Disarmingly funny, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur tells it like it is and yet never gives up on the little guy. "The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is a great, insightful read loaded with ingenuity, humor, and heart. -- Cameron Johnson , Entrepeneur, Oprah's The Big Give Contestent and Author of You Call The Shots. -- Fraser Doherty , 19 Year Old Founder & Managing Director of $1M+ company, SuperJam. The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur shows you how to get off the pot by using what you have to make your business a success!" First, it is written by a successful serial entrepreneur who has built multi-million dollar businesses and walked the talk. The founder of three multimillion-dollar companies, including Obsidian Launch, a company that partners with first-time entrepreneurs to grow their concepts into industry leaders, Mike Michalowicz knows what it really takes to spin your great idea into pure gold. Whether you're just starting out or have been at this for years, Mike's "get real" approach to business is a much-needed swift kick in the pants.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur has a target base of readers who have discovered they MUST get off the proverbial pot if they are to have any chance of success in this very challenging economy. These people are ready, willing, and capable of achieving wonderfully successful businesses that can in turn jump start the economy, but they don't have time to go back to school to learn all the technical jargon, etc to begin their work. At the end of each chapter is a set of action steps designed to help the budding entrepreneur or even a long-time business person evaluate his WHY...why am I doing what I'm doing...for if one can reignite the passion, or in some cases actually discover the driving passion, then there is a recipe for success that does not involve a convoluted, mystifying jumble of highly specific jargon that only the "media darlings", as Michalowicz calls them, can decipher. The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur cuts to the chase in regard to small business development by sharing with his audience what the 20% already know...you must know WHO you are in order to know WHAT you are about before you can determine WHERE you are going, and all of that BEFORE you can create the road map to get there! Many, if not all, of the TPE audience feels betrayed by the system, but Michalowicz offers hope by reminding us of our historical origins......we are a nation of resourceful, resilient people who can do anything with a strong will and "just three sheets of paper"."
"I love this book because it's more than a book, it's become a guide to charting the course of my business."
"I'm on my way to starting my own business and using the principles in this book I found my passion and now I'm taking action. The proof is in the pudding and in my humble opinion, this book is worth every penny.I stumbled across and purchased it purely because the name intrigued me and now I'm totally hooked on anything Mike Michalowicz has to offer. They are referred to as Immutable Laws and by building your business round them you will be happy and always inspired to work. This book has some great tips and advice on how to build a business you are passionate about and will be able to sustain for the long haul. This is Not a book about short cuts, or unsubstantiated claims of how to turn a $100 into $100,000 with just a click of a button. You will get some great strategies for success from this book, but like it says on page 35: without action "it's all concepts and no application." If your still not convinced, check out Mick Michalowicz blog at [...] Sign up for his newsletter and see how much valuable advice he gives."
"Before starting my business, I read many books on "business". Every other business book talks about waiting for the "perfect" time to start, well guess what, that "perfect" time will make you wait until you die!"
Best Venture Capital
How to raise money; What terms matter and which ones don’t; How to negotiate a fair deal for everyone; What makes venture capitalists tick, including how they are compensated and motivated; How companies are valued by venture capitalists; How all current structures of funding work, including convertible debt, crowdfunding, pre-sales and other non-traditional methods; How these particular issues change through different stages of financing (seed, early, mid and late); and How to avoid business and legal pitfalls that many entrepreneurs make. And as in the previous editions, this book isn’t just a one-sided opinion from venture capitalists, but also has helpful commentary throughout from a veteran CEO who has raised many rounds of financing from many different investors. “When I was a founder, VCs hoarded information about how venture capital terms worked to stack the deck in their favor. Along came Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson who started giving away the game by publishing how things worked on their blog. “Having worked with Brad and Jason during the Internet bubble, I witnessed first-hand the experience they gained by doing deals that covered the entire range of issues an entrepreneur faces today. The authors' frank style and incisive insight make this a must-read for high-growth company entrepreneurs, early-stage investors, and graduate students. This book goes far beyond the nuts and bolts of term sheets and venture capital to give invaluable insights into the importance of building relationships based on trust. “I have been lucky to have Brad Feld as a mentor as a VC, and watch him advise companies as a board member. Brad and Jason demystify the overly complex world of term sheets and M&A, cutting through the legalese and focusing on what really matters. Having an educated entrepreneur on the other side of the table means you spend your time negotiating the important issues and ultimately get to the right deal faster." Brad and Jason are highly respected investors who shoot straight from the hip and tell it like it is, bringing a level of transparency to a process that is rarely well understood. - Emily Mendell, Vice President of Communications, National Venture Capital Association.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I am a 2x entrepreneur who has raised over $20M in VC funding, so when i say this is a must-read IF you want to raise money I am speaking out of experience. I wish I had this book in 2007, when I was trying to raise money. VCs are in the business to accomplish two things: (1) preserve their LP capital (i.e. don't lose money). As an entrepreneur you end up working for the VCs and will get wealthy if your company ends up being one of the 0.01% of VC companies that have very successful exits. so lets look at the main two things covered in this book that describe how VCs make money: VCs get their money from pension funds, alternative asset funds, government organizations, and basically any large sources of capital that is looking for risk-adjusted better-than-average returns. There are many other ways to raise money - loans, venture debt, private equity, and good ol' sales... Granted, this might not be the fastest way to grow your company and presents the risk of being overtaken by a well-funded company. But if you know that the market is big enough for more then one player (even if you're #2), and you want to keep a larger amount of your hard-earned money and reduce the influence of VCs then think twice about the VC option."
"This is the second time in my life I find myself doing the rounds to collect proper money from investors. The authors, seasoned VC entrepreneurs, have a gift for writing and that’s what carries you through the book. So I’m reading this and the only thing that keeps me from saying “OK, boys and girls, this covers everything, it’s the gospel” is the simple fact that if I was a VC I’d write a book that makes the case for the VC’s interests rather than the entrepreneur’s. If for some mysterious reason you don’t want a preview, on the other hand, look away now, because what follows is my summary of the key points: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------. Chapter 1: “The Players”. • You need to be talking to a Managing Director or a General Partner. • You need a good, experienced lawyer: this is an awful place to skimp. • Mentors are great. Chapter 2: “How to Raise Money”. • You need an elevator pitch, an executive summary and a 10-slide powerpoint presentation. • “We haven’t seen a business plan in more than 20 years”. • Your financial model must get the potential expenses right; forget about nailing the revenues. • Do your homework on your VC and don’t press any clearly advertised wrong buttons. • If you feel like your VC is a proctologist, run for the hills. • Ask your VC for references from entrepreneurs. Chapter 3: “Overview of the Term Sheet: • It’s not a letter of intent; it’s a blueprint for your future relationship with your VC. • Two things matter: economics and control. Chapter 4: “Economic Terms of the Term Sheet”. • Understand the difference between pre-money and post-money. • The VC will try to stick the options pool in the pre-money valuation. • You must have a Plan B to be able to negotiate good economic terms. • Competition aside, valuation will depend on the stage of the company, the team’s experience, the numbers, the suitability for the VC and the economic environment. • Liquidation Preference arises because VCs come in with preferred stock and means the VC gets its money first. • Fully Participating stock receives its participation amount and then shares in the liquidation process on an as-converted basis. • A cap can be put on the participation. • Under “pay to play” provisions, investors who do not participate in the next round get converted to common stock. • Typically, employee stocks and options will vest over four years and disappear if somebody leaves. • Consideration must be given to treating the vesting as clawback with an IRS Section 83(b) election. • Acceleration of vesting upon change of control is a key feature, don’t leave it out! • Antidilution provisions may be requested by the investor for the case where new common stock is created after the financing. Chapter 5: “Control Terms of the Term Sheet”. • At the beginning it will be 1. 2nd VC, 5. outside board member. • Don’t allow observers on your board. • Make sure the Protective Provisions allow you to borrow a reasonable amount of money. • Your investors need to vote as a single class. • There will be a drag-along provision (majority of shares on as-converted basis is the law in Delaware). • There will be a conversion clause (so VCs can vote alongside common stock when they must). • An automatic conversion clause can be there to force VCs to give up on their preferred ahead of a sale. Chapter 6: “Other Terms of the Term Sheet”. • Dividends might be requested by dorky VCs with Private Equity background. Chapter 8: “Convertible Debt”. • Convertible converts at a discount to the next financing. • You should put a reasonable time horizon on an equity financing as a condition, or you will find the debt converted before you had time to do the financing. • Follow-on investments can still be made during the investment term of the fund. • If a fund is approaching the end of its life, you don’t want them to invest in you and most probably they can’t anyway. Chapter 10: “Negotiation Tactics”. • Get a good result, do not kill your personal relationships and understand the deal you struck. Chapter 11: “Raising Money the Right Way”. • Don’t ask for an NDA. • Don’t negotiate your deal at the beginning (that looks awful) but don’t leave it last either."
Best Museum Industry
Beautifully designed and illustrated with color photographs throughout, The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects is a rich and fascinating journey through America's collective memory, and a beautiful object in its own right. Kirkus Reviews : “Smithsonian Undersecretary Kurin’s tales are abundant, so much so that it seems almost a shame to stop at a mere 101 items....A well-conceived and well-illustrated pleasure to read, combining narrative history and keepsake volume.”.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Kurin has written a very interesting series of articles about these 101 objects and how they relate to the history of America."
"Love this book...Didn't think it would be this thick for softcover...Alot of good information inside.. Great purchase..."
"Pages inside the book are good, but the jacket and cover are torn and worn in places."
"The book is filled with an immense amount of information which is presented in a fascinating, readable way."
"I am moving to the USA soon and thought it would be interesting to get to know some of the history of my next home country and this book is a really great source for that."
"What is not to love about anything Smithsonian?"
"An excellent book: One of the best put out by The Smithsonian."
Best Small Business
This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. "The Lean Startup has a kind of inexorable logic, and Ries’ recommendations come as a bracing slap in the face to would-be tech moguls: Test your ideas before you bet the bank on them. —Mitchell Kapor, Founder, Lotus Development Corp. "At Asana, we've been lucky to benefit from Eric's advice firsthand; this book will enable him to help many more entrepreneurs answer the tough questions about their business." —Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook and Asana “Ries' splendid book is the essential template to understand the crucial leadership challenge of our time: initiating and managing growth!” —Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California and author of the recently published, Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership. ". — Tim O'Reilly, CEO O'Reilly Media “Eric Ries unravels the mysteries of entrepreneurship and reveals that magic and genius are not the necessary ingredients for success but instead proposes a scientific process that can be learnt and replicated. Ries's ‘read and react’ approach to this sport, his relentless focus on validated learning, the never-ending anxiety of hovering between ‘persevere’ and ‘pivot’, all bear witness to his appreciation for the dynamics of entrepreneurship." —Randy Komisar, founding director of TiVo and author of the bestselling The Monk and the Riddle “How do you apply the 50 year old ideas of Lean to the fast-paced, high uncertainty world of Startups? It provides actionable ways to avoid product-learning mistakes, rigorously evaluate early signals from the market through validated learning, and decide whether to persevere or to pivot, all challenges that heighten the chance of entrepreneurial failure.” —Professor Noam Wasserman, Harvard Business School “One of the best and most insightful new books on entrepreneurship and management I’ve ever read. Seriously stop and read this book now.” —Scott Case, CEO Startup America Partnership “In business, a ‘lean’ enterprise is sustainable efficiency in action. Eric Ries’ revolutionary Lean Startup method will help bring your new business idea to an end result that is successful and sustainable. These tools will help organizations large and small to sustain innovation by effectively leveraging the time, passion, and skill of their talent pools.” — Andrea Goldsmith, professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and cofounder of several startups “Business is too important to be left to luck. This book is the guided tour of the key innovative practices used inside Google, Toyota, and Facebook, that work in any business.” — Scott Cook, Founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit. —Mitchell Kapor, Founder, Lotus Development Corp. "At Asana, we've been lucky to benefit from Eric's advice firsthand; this book will enable him to help many more entrepreneurs answer the tough questions about their business." —Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook and Asana “Ries' splendid book is the essential template to understand the crucial leadership challenge of our time: initiating and managing growth!” —Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California and author of the recently published, Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership. ". — Tim O'Reilly, CEO O'Reilly Media “Eric Ries unravels the mysteries of entrepreneurship and reveals that magic and genius are not the necessary ingredients for success but instead proposes a scientific process that can be learnt and replicated. Ries's ‘read and react’ approach to this sport, his relentless focus on validated learning, the never-ending anxiety of hovering between ‘persevere’ and ‘pivot’, all bear witness to his appreciation for the dynamics of entrepreneurship." —Randy Komisar, founding director of TiVo and author of the bestselling The Monk and the Riddle “How do you apply the 50 year old ideas of Lean to the fast-paced, high uncertainty world of Startups? It provides actionable ways to avoid product-learning mistakes, rigorously evaluate early signals from the market through validated learning, and decide whether to persevere or to pivot, all challenges that heighten the chance of entrepreneurial failure.” —Professor Noam Wasserman, Harvard Business School “One of the best and most insightful new books on entrepreneurship and management I’ve ever read. Seriously stop and read this book now.” —Scott Case, CEO Startup America Partnership “In business, a ‘lean’ enterprise is sustainable efficiency in action. These tools will help organizations large and small to sustain innovation by effectively leveraging the time, passion, and skill of their talent pools.” — Andrea Goldsmith, professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and cofounder of several startups “Business is too important to be left to luck. This book is the guided tour of the key innovative practices used inside Google, Toyota, and Facebook, that work in any business.” — Scott Cook, Founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee, Intuit.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is fabulous."
"Second time reading this book and it is a great book to read a second time, to remember his insights and to help formalize the thoughts I have many days at work."
"This is my first enterprise book I have ever read and learning about the Lean Startup that is now becoming a big thing was very helpful with this book."
"Not the be all and end all on the subject and the serious reader will want to dive into some of the other books on the subject."
"An eye-opener about how to succeed or fail in hi tech."
"If you are looking to create a startup business yourself, bring innovation to your workplace or consult on either behalf, this is a fantastic read."
"Vicente Njoku. Author: Success Plan and Positioning Strategy 7.0. Success Plan and Positioning Strategy 7.0: Closing The Gap Between Your Primary Goal and A Successful Outcome."
"In fact, hardware is hard and my research hasn't found anything remotely useful in applying lean start-up principles to hardware. Diarrhea of the word processor resulted in a 365 page definition of a lean start-up, where it could have been boiled down to less than 100 pages (minus 1-star for waste...Distill it down to an A3 using Lean Thinking). (Minus 1-star: As a hardware guy and having extensive experience in lean it's blatantly obvious Ries is just starting his lean journey and his last section (Accelerate) is superficial, survey, regurgitation of some of the lean tools and ideas). Reference More Actionable Books: Running Lean - Ash Maurya. Art of the Start (Ch.1) - Guy Kawasaki. Reference Free Material: Steve Blank's Website & Blog. Simon Sinek - Start with Why."
Best Marketing for Small Businesses
New York Times bestselling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk shares hard-won advice on how to connect with customers and beat the competition. Even companies committed to jabbing—patiently engaging with customers to build the relationships crucial to successful social media campaigns—want to land the punch that will take down their opponent or their customer’s resistance in one blow. New York Times bestselling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk shares hard-won advice on how to connect with customers and beat the competition. In the same passionate, streetwise style his readers have come to expect, Vaynerchuk is on a mission to strengthen marketers' right hooks by changing the way they fight to make their consumers happy, and ultimately to compete. Gary is also a prolific angel investor and venture capitalist, investing in companies including Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, and Venmo, and cofounding the Vayner/RSE fund, among many other enterprises.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"JJJRH is the next and final installment with lessons learned in between, real-world examples, and a basic patterned blueprint for success to give brands and businesses, big and small, a fighting chance in this social frenzy."
"I was STOKED when I found out that Gary chose my SM campaign, garnering me the "win" as his JJRHBook/Skillshare class challenge contest winner - winning me a 1-on1 Skype with Gary. I'm a firm believer in "speaking those things that are not, as if they were"."
"One of the features I especially loved about this book was the numerous examples of content marketing posts made in a variety of industries, by businesses of many different sizes."
"The phenomenal popularity of social media coupled with the market penetration of smartphones and mobile devices, has very recently and quite remarkably changed human behavior."
"One of the most important ideas to emerge during the rise of social media marketing over the past several years is that storytelling doesn’t just matter, it is absolutely essential to a brand’s success."
"It's packed with great ideas, tips, thoughts and some facts and numbers regarding social media that I haven't heard before. If you care at all about this stuff stop reading these reviews and just get the book ..... you'll earn your money back (and then some) quickly!"
Best Mail Order Small Businesses
Giant Product Source + Right Product + Large Daily Sales = $5 - $10,000 Plus/Month! Chatter abounded for years on the internet how this Chinese source (Alibaba) and others like it, could not be trusted: stories of resellers getting stuck with cheap and inferior products, not receiving products, not getting what they ordered, not being able to return bad products and the list goes on, were everywhere. Safely source products from Alibaba and AliExpress What products to buy and what not to buy How to identify trustworthy suppliers How to brand yourself so you get higher search rankings How to go inside eBay and Amazon to determine the most searched and best selling products so you can zero in on what works The only way to safely pay for products What products to sell and not to sell and why How to find good products How to evaluate products How to buy samples What price range to stay in and why How to prevent excessive freight charges How to find trending and new products and why these are key to your success.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I’m glad that I picked this book."
"This book offered me a great opportunity to find and source products from alibaba with more confidence."
"Thank you for this super item and quick service!"
"great book a ton of interesting details explained thank you author of this book."
"This was a fast and easy ready; however, the author dropped some helpful tips and tricks!!"
"Learn something new. After reading this ebook I will try alibaba again. Thanks for the info."
"Plenty of helpful tips for beginner users of Alibaba."
"Simple and easy to understand book with photos on how to make $ on alibaba by buying wholesale and reselling items in eBay or Amazon."
Best Small Business Bookkeeping
This is a straightforward budget planning method that will completely transform your finances, and eliminate your money worries once and for all. Grady Harp. (Hall of Fame, Amazon Top 100 Reviewer, Vine Voice). " This is the rarest of all rarities - a really good ebook on personal finance. ". "Avery Breyer's self-help guide to consumer finances... is filled with great ideasfor getting out of a financial rut . I found her reasons for setting up a budget to be compelling and was impressed by the Money Tracker program she includes with the book... Avery Breyer is the best-selling author of the Smart Money Blueprint Series.Avery has been quoted on/in Woman's World magazine, Time.com, Fool.com (Motley Fool), MSN Money, GoBanking Rates, and featured as a guest on WOR 710 "The Voice of New York," on The Financial Quarterback , hosted by Josh Jalinski.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"How you manage your money (however much or little it may be) affects every aspect of your life - your physical and emotional well-being, your relationships, what hobbies you can pursue and where you can live. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you can avoid taking control of your spending by simply getting a job that pays more. It's a wonderfully readable combination of advice, fascinating examples, and moral support. It's like sitting down with that favorite aunt or uncle (or grandparent) who understands that people make mistakes and who believes in your ability to turn things around."
"I bought this for myself."
"But if you don't know what the basics is, then read this book."
"I thoroughly enjoyed this book."
"I liked the plan a b c approach as we all know that even with the best intentions getting to our financial goals don't always go to plan."
"Avery Breyer uses a step by step systematic approach to the discipline of MONEY..."
"Really found this helpful and if you want simple tips to work with a budget - this is for you!"
Best Home-Based Small Businesses
Topics covered include: • Selling on Amazon.com & creative uses of eBay. • Finding and growing a loyal audience online. • The latest simple social media marketing strategies. • Automating your online efforts & building systems. • Effective email marketing. • Multiple real life success stories from the ever growing audience of creative and successful online entrepreneurs who have read this book. • And so much more! No fluff, no theory - get ready for hard hitting "do this not that" advice from a trusted leader who has been there.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Mainly applicable to the US, Canada, UK, Europe or wherever there is an Amazon presence Good ideas for those countries, I wish I could translate the ideas to doing business here in South Africa but we cannot register as an Amazon Seller at all."
"Jim is obviously an expert in this field who is wiling to provide quality content and deliver it with his trademark honesty and integrity."
"This is a fantastic book with practical information about on and offline business."
"I read this through and mostly skipped over the links as the material was straightforward and cut to the chase and I didn't want distractions."
"I'd give it a 5 star rating however i did not receive it and i assume it's because I don't have a kindle and pc must run an upgraded system which would cost me more than it's worth at this point."
"A lot of sound advice given in The Silent Sales Machine to point your mindset into the right direction for success!"
"Jim's book, Silent Sales Machine, is fantastic."
"Not only that, but it had actually boosted my interest to learn more from Silent Jim who has the uncanny ability to inspire to move any sceptic into action."
Best Entrepreneurship
“I have been in the human potential / personal development movement since 1973, when I did my first EST training and saw a whole new world of possibilities. Since then, I have studied religions, prayer, meditation, yoga, affirmation, visualization, and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). “What Hal has done with his acronym SAVERS is taken the “best practices”—developed over centuries of human consciousness development—and condensed the “best of the best” into a daily morning ritual. “As my rich dad often said, “I can always make another dollar, but I cannot make another day.” If you want to maximize every day of your life, read Miracle Morning.”. ========================================. What if you could miraculously wake up tomorrow and any—or every area of your life was transformed? What if I told you that there is a "not-so-obvious" secret that is guaranteed to transform any—or literally every area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible? What’s now being practiced by thousands of people around the world could perhaps be the simplest approach to creating the life you’ve always wanted. "Every once in a while, you read a book that changes the way you look at life. If you really want your life to improve, read this book immediately." Reading his first book, Taking Life Head On! After 6 days of fighting for his life, Hal proved that we all have the ability to overcome any obstacle and create the life of our dreams. Not only did he walk, he became an ultra-marathon runner, hall of fame business achiever, international Keynote Speaker, Success Coach, husband, father, hip-hop recording artist, and multiple time #1 bestselling author of "The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed To Transform Your Life... (Before 8AM)" and "Taking Life Head On: How To Love the Life You Have While You Create the Life of Your Dreams"—two of the highest rated and most acclaimed books on Amazon.com. Hal has appeared on dozens of radio and TV shows, and he’s been featured in numerous books, including The Education of Millionaires, Cutting Edge Sales, Living College Life in the Front Row, The Author’s Guide To Building An Online Platform, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales and the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I almost didn't get the book because I read the 1 star reviews and they said it was a simplistic redo of the same messages many others had done. I heard Hal Elrod on a webinar and was excited to read the book based upon his presentation, there were a lot of 5 star reviews and I decided to get it. To exercise has been on my goals list for five years and I just couldn't get back to it until I read Miracle Morning."
"A few weeks ago I was exhausted in tears thinking I didn't have "me time". What time alone I had at the end of the day I just wasted watching tv."
""Whether you want to make significant improvements in just a few key areas, or you are ready for a major overhaul that will radically transform your entire life--so your current circumstances will soon become only a memory of what was--you've picked up the right book. You are about to begin a miraculous journey, using a simple, but revolutionary process that is guaranteed to transform any area of your life... all before 8:00 am." After 6 minutes of that (near-)death experience, he spent several days in a coma and awoke to discover he had suffered brain damage and was told that he may never walk again. He defied the odds and proved we're all capable of overcoming obstacles while creating the life of our dreams. If you've been looking to jump start your life--or just take it to the next level--there's no better place to start than by dialing in your morning routine and Hal is the perfect guide to help us discover the "not-so-obvious secrets" to rockin' it before 8:00 am! good job of helping us architect our miracle mornings--whether that's a 6-minute plan to start or 60."
"First off, there are a lot of good ideas outlined in the book that I'm looking forward to implementing to improve my mornings and be as productive as I can possibly be. "Thousands of people have reached their potential after utilizing The Miracle Morning." There was so much fluff and shameless self-promotion that had the book not been downloaded on my iPad I would've thrown the physical copy away after ripping out the pages that were actually useful."
"Once on the website, you need to register and get sucked into more commercial advertising and never get the information that was said to be there."