The start-up smarts : the thinking entrepreneur's guide to starting and growing your business / Barry H. Cohen and Michael Rybarski.

Patron comment on 2013-10-07

In Start-Up Smarts, authors Cohen and Rybarski have created an expert reference for anyone looking to create their own business or bring a unique product idea to fruition. The book is divided into 11 chapters, which are broken down into the steps one needs to take when starting their own business. For example, the book opens by discussing how to “bulletproof your business concept,” and then leads into how to find funding and build a company structure. Towards the closing of the book (which should be classified as more of a guide than anything), the authors discuss long-term strategy when it comes to succeeding in your industry. As for content, Start-Up Smarts is riddled with the type of “insider” information all entrepreneurs should follow. For example, Cohen discusses the difficulties of conducting market research through surveys, and the unexpected expenses of using survey companies. He includes first-hand experience of clever, cheap tactics he’s used in the past that garner potentially greater results than using third party companies. The use of anecdotal accounts in every chapter compliments the hard facts and information presented throughout the book.

This book would be extremely beneficial to anyone who has a product idea and is passionate enough to follow through with it. As stated in the novel, an entrepreneur should have experience in at least 2 positions in their intended field of entry before starting a business. This may deter college students, who generally have little experience, from reading the rest of the guide; however, most of the advice is highly applicable to fields other than entrepreneurship (such as marketing, finance, and corporate strategy), and thus I would still highly suggest it for that reason.