Product Description

The economy may not be great, but there are still plenty of entrepreneurs around with great ideas for high-tech start-ups. If you are one of them, this book will help you succeed. It gives you all the basic information you need to make your great idea a business reality.

Updated for today's business and economic climate, the new, fully revised edition of Engineering Your Start-Up is the complete guide to launching and growing a successful high-tech company. The authors, both successful veterans of many start-ups, focus you squarely on the fundamentals of making a new business work.

They demystify the start-up process with frank advice, insider's tips, and in-depth analysis. On-point case studies show you what to do--and what to avoid. An expanded list of resources steers you to help when you need it. You'll learn what it takes for you to create and manage a start-up, and the personal characteristics required for success in your new venture.

Engineering Your Start-Up offers a dose of reality for all aspects of the start-up world. Among the topics covered: securing funding (or surviving until you do), dealing with venture capitalists, writing a business plan, creating a management team, market positioning, stock ownership and grant practices, protecting intellectual property, and many other topics.

Engineering Your Start-Up is a distillation of the key lessons of the high-tech start-up world. As a new entrepreneur, you'll find it a book you go back to again and again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83571 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-26
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 447 pages

Byte Magazine, 12/93 issue
"An essential guide through the pitfalls and hazards of the business world."

San Jose Mercury News, 9/93 issue
"A feast of ideas."

From the Publisher
What's New in the Second Edition

Three New Chapters:

The Term Sheet: A Practical Overview demystifies the structure and terms of venture financing, an all-important event in the life of most successful start-ups that is familiar ground to professional investors but unfamiliar and threatening to many entrepreneurs

Protecting Your Intellectual Property covers the major types of intellectual property protection (copyrights, patents, trade secrets, and trademarks)

The Legal Form of Your Start-Up discusses the various choices for your start-up (corporation, partnership, limited liability corporation, and so forth) and how to decide which is best for you

Updated Business Plan Information:
The latest advice on researching and writing your business plan
Reasons why many entrepreneurs have difficulty writing their business plans--and practical tips to avoid the problem

Expanded Section on Finding Money:
Much more on where and how to find money, including advice on corporate investors and strategic partners
Tips from investors on how to raise money
Recent trends in venture funding

Plus:
Tips on creating a compelling "elevator pitch"
The latest views on company valuation and exit strategies
Updates on legal and accounting matters, including stock options and other forms of compensation
A greatly expanded Resources section and lots of links to useful information

Customer Reviews

Engineering Your Start-Up
This book has a lot more meat than most other start-up books I have come across so far. In particular it has good explanations of the different financing and compensation options -- making the book useful not just for founders who may need to negotiate with venture capitalists, but also for anyone who works at a start-up (and doesn't know what the difference between stock and stock options are, or how to estimate how much what they are getting may eventually be worth). On the other hand the level of detail about how to get things done isn't always down to the cookbook level, and there is frequent advice along the lines of "have your legal department do x". That may be a good idea, but it's not always an option, and at least I'd expect some discussion about how to get good legal advice etc.

Sage advices throughout
As a trusting reader of the 1st edition "Engineering Your Start-up" since 1999, even I have other books in my collection, I still turn to it from time to time.

The authors graciously placed their updated materials on the Web for a long time, and I consulted the resources from time to time.

Nevertheless, I think I will buy the 2nd edition soon. Nothing beats the feeling of having a well written book in hand. In passing I'd like to say that the 1st Ed IMHO still offers sage advices tough to get elsewhere.

Read This Before Visiting a VC
This book's special expertise is about designing the financing of your startup!

A few years ago when I did a business plan for a technology start-up, the first edition of this book was my source for planning for equity participation for founders, employees, VCs, and the public from founding through IPO. When this second edition came out, I bought it to pass along to a friend in the early stages of a startup.

If you are a technical member of a startup, you must read this unless you are already sophisticated in the financing of startups. Don't talk to a VC until you have studied this book.

The title is the key. "Engineers" and other technical types will find this a quick and interesting book. And if you are going to play "Monopoly," you must at least know the basic rules first. This is how the game is played in Silicon Valley! If you don't, you will not pass GO and will not collect $200.