Self-Aggrandizement: RE 1. What Am I Reading?

Before we dive into the specifics, let’s first take a look at who this book is meant for, the broad areas it covers, and how you can best use it to generate maximum results.

1.1. Should I Read This Book?

Perhaps you have an existing business that you’re looking to kick into hyper-growth. Perhaps you’ve been tossing around a great startup idea, but haven’t actually launched into it yet. Or perhaps you simply know you want to start a company, but aren’t yet sure exactly what that company will be.

In any of those cases, you’ll love Radical Entrepreneurship; over several hundred pages, I’ll share with you absolutely everything you need to find ideas, turn those ideas into companies, and then grow those companies extremely quickly and effectively.

At least three other groups of people can benefit from this book as well.

First are the heads of nonprofit organizations, or anyone thinking of starting a nonprofit. Not only do the guerilla tactics I present for building successful companies apply to nonprofits, but the results-driven organizations the tactics create also make fundraising vastly easier – donors give money to organizations they believe can really get things done.

Additionally, many of the ideas in this book also apply to people who work for companies rather than start them. An entrepreneurial approach to your job can make you a more effective employee, and can help you reshape your company from the inside – two great ways to quickly climb the corporate ladder. Much of the information presented can also make finding a new job much easier, should you want or need to move on from your current post.

Finally, students of business will also benefit greatly from Radical Entrepreneurship. Learning these ideas – really learning them – then filing them away, will arm you to launch into action when you’re ready. But, just because you’re still in school, don’t think you can’t get down to business! I sold my first company while a sophomore in college, and sold the second by the time I graduated. And I’ve seen many other students achieve similar business success while in school. Here’s your chance to make ‘becoming a young mogul’ your extracurricular activity.

1.2. But Don’t Just Read This Book!

A recent study of business book buyers showed that about half of the buyers never actually read the books they bought. Of those that did, fewer than 10% then actually put the information they learned to work in their own companies. In other words, 95% of the people who buy business books are completely wasting their time and money.

I hope that’s not you. Because, while this book makes for reasonably entertaining reading, it only becomes truly valuable when you actually use the contents, when you figure out how to put them to work in starting and growing companies.

To really take advantage of this book, I’d suggest reading it with a pen and notepad by your side, and using them often. If something makes a lot of sense, spurs specific to-do ideas, or launches you into a fit of brainstorming brilliance, write it down. When you’re done reading, you’ll then be ready to jump into action.

Additionally, bundled with this book is a series of chapter-by-chapter checklists that, combined with your own notes, should help you actually put all of the ideas to work, step by step. The checklists may not make much sense until you read the associated chapters, and as most chapters depend on similar and interrelated ideas in other chapters, I’d recommend you read through the entire book before launching into action.

When you’re ready to implement, you can use the index or table of contents to go back and review specifics things you’d like to think through again.

Finally, a few months down the road, once you’ve had a chance to actually try out some of the ideas the book contains, I’d also recommend re-reading the entire book; at that point, you’ll likely pick up all kinds of things you didn’t the first time through.

1.3. Telling You What I’ll Be Telling You

As you may have noticed, Radical Entrepreneurship is fairly long. Fortunately, it’s also structured rather logically, with each chapter reflecting a major aspect of building a successful company. Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll be learning along the way:

Next up, in Chapter 2: It’s Who You Know, I talk about the extreme importance of building a large and active contact network. The chapter covers some of the very best ways to meet people, build relationships with them, and then leverage those relationships throughout the process of building a company.

As the quality of your contacts plays a huge part in determining your effectiveness in every other aspect of starting a company, learning to network well is a great place to start.

In Chapter 3: What’s the Big Idea?, I cover the logical first step of starting a company: deciding what kind of company you’re going to start. I talk through the different kinds of companies, with some of the advantages and disadvantages of each, before moving on to discuss ways to generate specific company ideas - from combining or improving existing ideas, to generating paradigm-shifting ones from scratch.

In most cases, you can’t – and shouldn’t want to – go it alone. So, in Chapter 4: Loading the Bus, I talk about building your team. First and foremost, you’ll need to bring in some other executives equally committed to growing your company.

You’ll also want to put together a board of directors, and a board of advisors. And, over time, you’ll likely hire in increasing numbers of employees to handle your company’s growth.

Your decisions while building a team can make or break your company, and so I’ll focus particularly on how to recognize and recruit the right people.

After that, in Chapter 5: Getting Down to Business, I walk through the (admittedly, often not terribly exciting) process of laying all the infrastructure groundwork for your new company. From decisions about office space, to building a team of outside service providers (such as lawyers and accountants), it’s all here, with lots of guerilla tips for maximizing the benefits gained from each.

Follow the steps in this chapter, and you’ll have a real company. Then what?

Ah, yes, that pesky empty bank account. Time for Chapter 6: Show Me the Money, in which I’ll walk you through the full range of financing possibilities, sharing direct experience, and exploring how each financing route has changed post ‘new economy’ bubble.

I’ll also drill into the process of writing a business plan, explain why most of what you’ll find in books on writing business plans is hopelessly outdated or total bullshit, and help you pull together a document that not only helps raise you money, but also clarifies exactly where you’ll be taking the business, and how you’ll be getting there.

Right. So now you’ve got the colleagues, the corporation, and the cash. Nothing left but to get down to actually doing business. Chapter 7: One Foot after Another, shares my tactics for making that happen. You’ll learn about using a top-down, strategy-driven approach to determine what need be done, then delegate and hands-off manage those tasks to completion.

I’ll also talk about the role of honesty and over-communication – two things that will make running your company vastly easier (ironically, even more so during rough patches than in smooth ones).

And, finally, I walk through the various stages of company evolution, discussing how companies change as they grow, and how your approach to running them has to change in response.

Excellent. The company’s off to a great start, and growing quickly. But how could it grow even faster? Almost certainly, the limiting factor is the number and quality of your customers. So in Chapter 8: Building the Cause, I talk about the first half of finding customers, the part that involves reaching large numbers of potential customers at once, and is often called marketing, building a brand, or evangelizing. Whatever the name, this is the first step in building and retaining a rabidly loyal customer base.

Since this book is about guerilla tactics, I’ll focus on lot on low- or no-cost approaches in particular that will bring customers beating a path to your door.

Of course, once they knock, it may still take a bit of work to get them to step inside. In Chapter 9: Selling the Dream, I talk through the one-on-one aspects of customer acquisition, the process of getting them to sign on the line that is dotted.

If you’re a natural salesman, you’ll take away tips that will hone your game; if you hate the prospect of pushing to close, I’ll also share a number of win-win strategies that will make selling (a key part of any CEO’s job) much less painful.

Speaking of the CEO’s job, Chapter 10: It’s Good to be the King, goes into greater detail about what that job actually is, before launching into a rather extended laundry list of how to do it more effectively – from managing time better and taking control of email, to the ins and outs of business travel and the importance of buying good shoes (really!).

Taken together, all of this should make you as effective as you possibly can be, getting the most done with the least possible time and stress.

That leads me to the sister chapter, Chapter 11: Enjoying the Ride, which delves into the importance of maintaining your sanity (or, what little of it you currently possess) throughout the startup process, by building a rich, balanced and fulfilling life that doesn’t entail you sleeping under your desk for the next five years (which, sadly, I’ve seen done),

With all the previous information under your belt, you’ll be growing a company that will soon have you, too, on the pages of Forbes and the Wall St. Journal. Then what?

Given my own experience, and what I’ve seen amongst successful entrepreneur friends, you’ll be gut-hooked by the absolute fun that building companies can be. And, frankly, the joy is in the starting, the making something from nothing, the cooking from scratch. So, in Chapter 12: Rinse & Repeat, I discuss exit strategies – how and when to cash in your chips.

Normally, that takes you back to the very beginning, as you go through all the same steps again in building your next company, though this time with the good judgment gained from your experience, bad judgment, and the words of wisdom in this book.

As my reprinting the first twelve chapters a second time to reflect that fact likely won’t help you much, instead, in Chapter 13: Last Call, I’ll bring things to a close, summarizing all that’s come before, and – for good measure – throwing in some verse by my most favorite poet, Dr. Seuss.

That’s pretty much it. Go to it.

RE 1. What Am I Reading? Filed Monday, March 14 2005.

RE 1. What Am I Reading?
Filed Monday, March 14 2005.