Smart Startups and business advice

Thinking of starting your own business or investing in a new one? Here are some recent titles that offer perspective on those activities.

SMART STARTUPS, available from Harper Wave, is written by Catalina Daniels and James H. Sherman, both of whom are Harvard Business school graduates with experience as consultants (McKinsey and Bain, respectively), serial entrepreneurs, and angel investors. They have collaborated on this text to outline “What Every Entrepreneur Needs to Know -- Advice from 18 Harvard Business School Founders.” A primary goal is to share real world experience and perceptions from fellow alums and entrepreneurs like Jenny Fleis of Rent the Runway or Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, the rental platform. Daniels and Sheran contend “one of the key takeaways from our interviews in this book is that one can learn to ‘start smarter’ but the challenges and the learning will never stop.” They offer an inspirational take on that journey, sharing insights about the passion to create, being resilient, and importance of timing. In addition, they stress the importance of planning and how “landing a good idea often requires a deliberate, lengthy ideation process.” SMART STARTUPS is filled with quotes and guidance that merit thoughtful reflection. Each chapter opens with a one-line summary (like: “Customer feedback should blow you away. Anything less means you keep refining.”) and then Daniels and Sherman include subheadings with commentary from their many successful interviewees. Budding entrepreneurs, as well as more established ones, will enjoy learning from this text.  

START. SCALE. EXIT. REPEAT., published by Forbes Books and written by Colin C. Campbell, is actually dedicated to “all the entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs who want to learn.”  Campbell is another serial entrepreneur, having been associated with numerous startups including Tucows, Internet Direct, Hostopia, and GeeksforLess. He divides this new text into the 4 steps outlined in the title and then further subdivides those into Story, People, Money and Systems. There he reveals entrepreneurs’ “secrets” like focusing on something you love and hiring people who are ‘different’ when starting out. He provides some honest commentary about his own experiences: [there were] “times when I partied like it's 1999 and times when I wanted to climb back into my cave and curl up into a ball.” Campbell breaks up the text with quotes and graphs and offers several lists, like key values. He writes about developing the business as well as balancing one’s personal life suggesting, for example, that readers “delegate responsibilities, not tasks.” Entrepreneurs, even aspiring ones, are likely familiar with many of the suggestions here, but still may enjoy a run through this very accessible text.