Product Description

How do you come up with a good idea for a business? What are the unique marketing challenges that you'll face? How do you acquire the necessary financing? Written by one of the biggest names in the field, this book will arm readers with the knowledge to turn inspiration into results. It explores the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship so that readers will have the necessary tools to start their own businesses. Critical steps are explained in an engaging style that helps make complex issues easy to understand.
* Integrates case studies throughout the chapters to show readers how the information is applied in the real world.
* Outlines successes as well as failures to paint a realistic picture of the difficulties involved in starting a business.
* Discusses how to recognize opportunities and formulate a winning strategy.
* Explains how to create a business plan and build pro forma financial statements.
* Covers how to acquire equity financing and getting access to funds.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75555 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

About the Author
Bill Bygrave is the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College, where he also teaches Free Enterprise. He has also been a successful entrepreneur himself: he founded a high-tech company that was funded with venture capital; he managed a division of another high-tech company that was listed on the NYSE; he co-founded a pharmaceutical database company; and he was a member of the investment committee of a venture capital firm. He spent the 1992-1993 academic year at INSEAD where he introduced an MBA course in Entrepreneurial Finance and led a pan-European team from eight nations that studied entrepreneurs' attitudes toward realizing value and harvesting their companies. One of the outcomes of that research was the initiative that led to the founding of EASDAQ (the European equivalent of NASDAQ). In 1997, he and Michael Hay at the London Business School started the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), which examines the entrepreneurial competitiveness of nations. Bygrave was the 1997 winner of the Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in the supporter category for New England, and one of the three finalists in this category nationwide.

Andrew Zacharakis is the Paul T. Babson Term Chair in Entrepreneurship and Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College. His writings and research focus on two major areas of entrepreneurship: the venture capital decision-making process, and the impact of entrepreneurship on the economy. His 1999 article on new venture failure received editor's award for best article in Journal of Small Business Management and his dissertation received the Heizer Award for outstanding thesis in entrepreneurship in 1995. Zacharakis has been interviewed in newspapers nationwide, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times, and by several magazines, including Inc., Entrepreneur and Kiplinger's. He has also appeared on television in the Bloomberg Small Business Report and radio on NPR Morning Edition. Prior to his work at Babson, he held investment banking/venture capital positions with The Cambridge Companies. He also previously held positions at IBM and Leisure Technologies.

Customer Reviews

Entrepreneurship
Good read. Contains a lot of useful information for anyone who is thinking about becoming an entrepreneur. Contains cases of various companies, some well-known, and explains the initiative the companies took in order to be very successful.

what a GEM
I'm actually using this book right now for one of my classes. Normally I don't read my text books, i just kinda reference them. But this book is just gold. The case studies are the best. We get to see first hand what entrepreneurs go though and all the challenges that may come up. It's a great reality check. I'm not finished with it yet, but at this rate, I WANT to finish it, even though it's not required for class.

If you're new to entrepreneurship, but you know you HAVE to control your own financial destiny. This book is a must.

Entrepeneurship
One of the best books I had in College. The case studies in the text were extremely helpful. I would recommend the book to any budding entrepreneur or business major.