The Startup Garden: How Growing a Business Grows You
Author: Tom Ehrenfeld, Jim Collins
List Price: $18.95
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ISBN: 0071368248
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade (12 October, 2001)
Sales Rank: 118,571
Average Customer Rating: 4.64 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Refreshing Look at the Human Side of Business
Most books that deal with startups or entrepreneurship focus on the formulaic sides of business; they include fill-in-the-blank business plans, spreadsheet templates that assume every company is the same, and a directory of financing sources that anyone could find on the Internet. Tom Ehrenfeld's "The Startup Garden" is the antithesis of these books, instead offering the reader not so much a series of answers to everyday questions, but rather a more thought-provoking series of questions which every entrepreneur should ask him- or herself before starting a business. Thankfully, this book is more about the journey than the destination.As someone who advises a number of early-stage entrepreneurs, I am all too happy to suggest that anyone contemplating a startup should read this book before going too far. Doing so will cause the first-time or serial entrepreneur to consider all the facets of launching and running a company from both business and personal perspectives: a very worthwile introspective effort!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Invaluable
There are a million books on starting businesses, and every five years or so one comes along that raises the bar. Ehrenfeld's breakthrough book on entrepreneurship presents a sharp set of tools that set it apart from the pack. Clear, concise writing makes the difference. While many entrepreneurs have been successful in business, they haven't been able to give others the right information. In The Startup Garden, you'll get a complete toolkit and -- perhaps most important -- the keys to timing your business so that you have the true sense of an entrepreneur. This book won't help someone like Steve Jobs, but for the rest of us, it's worth its weight in stock certificates.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Approachable and engaging style, but lacking content.
I've been devouring "startup" and entrepreneur books as of late, and they each face the same problems--vagueness. This book is no exception. Reading the reviews, and even while beginning the book, I thought to myself, "This is the one!" mostly because I liked the premise of integrating the "passion" part of the small business along with the pragmatics. The writing style is a bonus too--not condescending and very approachable. However, in the end, I was disappointed. Yes, the author outlines the basic steps of approaching your startup--conceptualizing, researching, financing, etc--but falls short of providing you details of HOW exactly to accomplish this. What good is your passion for a small business if you can't even get it off the ground? After you've exhausted the usual suspects--the small business center, entrepreneur/startup books like this one, and your local library--then what are you supposed to do? And how do the big players (like the anecdotes given in this book) make it from being a regular person with a little seed of an idea to CEO of a large company? That's the sort of nitty-gritty we need, not pumping us full of the already well-known fact that every business needs a business plan. Similar Products
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