Recently I have been asked to help fresh entrepreneurs in their voyage for a successful growth company creation. Some of these guys have been in the business world over 20 years in high corporate ranks but never in the startup environment. It's a totally different world when you don't have a secratary that has booked your schedule full for the next twelve months. This freedom drives some people full of energy and action but scares the other ones. No predictability, so many details and issues one has to take care oneself without any assistance or prior experience.
Anyhow, here's my favourite advice for all entrepreneurs already in the route or just about to get started. Read these two books and remember that only the paranoid will survive:
1) Nesheim: "High Tech Start Up"
2) Ferguson: " High Stakes, No Prisoners"
3) for those with need for an advance level course: Sun Tzu: "Art of War".
Nesheim is an excellent guidebook from the start till to the IPO stage. It's a handbook with valuable comments and points. Very practical and easy to read. Ferguson is a subjective story of a successful entrepreneur who made his mark in the boom times of 90's. However this book gives more flavour and spice for the clinical approach of Nesheim. Ferguson is very straight talking and paranoid with his venture - but for a reason. He sold his company to Microsoft and went through many stages of hardship and VC money before landing to the exit stage.
Posted at August 9, 2004 10:17 AM