Business startup advice from the former president of the Ewing Marion Kaufmann Foundation and cofounder of Global Entrepreneurship Week and StartUp America, this “thoughtful study of ‘how businesses really start, grow, and prosper’...dispels quite a few business myths along the way” (Publishers Weekly). Carl Schramm, the man described by The Economist as “The Evangelist of Entrepreneurship,” has written a myth-busting guide packed with tools and techniques to help you get your big idea off the ground. Schramm believes that entrepreneurship has been misrepresented by the media, business books, university programs, and MBA courses. For example, despite the emphasis on the business plan in most business schools, some of the most successful companies in history—Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and hundreds of others—achieved success before they ever had a business plan. Burn the Business Plan punctures the myth of the cool, tech-savvy twenty-something entrepreneur with nothing to lose and venture capital to burn. In fact most people who start businesses are juggling careers and mortgages just like you. The average entrepreneur is actually thirty-nine years old, and the success rate of entrepreneurs over forty is five times higher than that of those under age thirty. Entrepreneurs who come out of the corporate world often have discovered a need for a product or service and have valuable contacts to help them get started. Filled with stories of successful entrepreneurs who drew on real-life experience rather than academic coursework, Burn the Business Plan is the guide to starting and running a business that will actually work for the rest of us.

David E. Gumpert maintains that writing a business plan not only takes too much time, but distracts entrepreneurs from tasks that mean more to potential investors, like preparing a presentation, developing a Web site, obtaining publicity, and making sales. You'll learn a totally new approach to starting and building a business and impressing investors

"Includes sample business plans, resources, and worksheets."

This book takes an original approach to business models and entrepreneurship, resulting from a durable involvement with entrepreneurs and from experiments combining theory and practice. The authors present the generation, remuneration, and sharing business model, which relates to the value generation, its remuneration and the sharing of this remuneration. They also outline the role and the central place of the business model within the entrepreneurial process; the theoretical bases conventions theory, resource based view and stakeholder theory and the construction of the GRS model; the experiments conducted within teaching, practical, and theoretical frameworks; and the contribution of the business model to a theory of entrepreneurship theory. The book explains why the business model can be useful for entrepreneurs and why it is relevant to set it in place during the entrepreneurial process. Students and researchers who are interested in entrepreneurship will find this an important resource for developing a new business. Management coaches, often interested in the most recent developments of management research, will have no difficulty moving between the theory and practice set out in this book. Finally, curious entrepreneurs will read this study not to seek immediate solutions to a problem but to reflect on the topics addressed here that show that the business model is not just a fashion but is highly useful.

The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Business Plansoffers both the tactical and economic considerations to start and sustain your company-- and keep ahead of the competition. The book explores the crucial elements of a business plan-- with examples, information about credit and hot is perceived by investors, expert marketing suggestions, and effective strategies for putting together operational and sales plans.

Our counter cultural approach to mental training has helped transform leaders in sports, business, and education. The stories, strategies, and tools within will leave you encouraged and inspired. If you are looking for a quick fix, look somewhere else. If you are looking to achieve your greatest potential on the journey of life, you have come to the right place.

Communicating your idea in a clear, compelling, and persuasive manner is critical when trying to launch a new venture. This Harvard Business Review collection brings together two popular books to help you craft your story, design better visualizations, impress your audience, and turn your idea into reality. Understanding and using data viz to persuade is a must-have skill for anyone in business today--especially if you're launching a new venture. In Good Charts, dataviz maven Scott Berinato provides an essential guide to how visualization works. Berinato lays out a system for thinking visually and building better charts through a process of talking, sketching, and prototyping. How do you launch the venture of your dreams? In Get Backed, entrepreneurs Evan Baehr and Evan Loomis argue that it's not just about securing startup funding. It's about building the right relationships, crafting a compelling story, and creating the perfect pitch deck. Filled with proven tips, exercises, and templates, this book shows the process for how to successfully communicate your vision. Good Charts will help you turn plain, uninspiring charts that merely present information into smart, effective visualizations that powerfully convey ideas. Get Backed will show you exactly what it takes to get funded and will give you the tools to launch a new venture. Together, these books will help you bring your idea to life.