Entrepreneurship For Dummies [Paperback]

Kathleen Allen PhD (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2000

Today's business marketplace is filled with news of small business and entrepreneurs making it big. Entrepreneurship For Dummies brings everything the reader needs to get started in business into one package. From developing an opportunity and coming up with a concept to actually creating the company, this book guides readers step-by-step. Included are all the procedures necessary to create a successful business. Learn how to know your customer, test and protect your product, test distribution, and create a business plan. Discover how to find the best legal structure, business model, organization plan, marketing plan, and financial plan.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Praise for Entrepreneurship For Dummies^® "A fantastic way to learn everything you need to know about successfully starting and operating your own business." — Karen E. Klein, Small Business Advice Columnist, Los Angeles Times "If you were born to be an entrepreneur (not everyone is), this book can help you succeed." — Joe Coulombe, Founder, Trader Joe's Company

Discover the secrets of a winning business plan

Get tips on attracting angel investors

The fun and easy way^™ to turn your great idea into a money-making startup You've got a terrific idea for a new business. But how do you turn it into reality? This friendly guide can help. Packed with practical information and great advice, it shows you step-by-step how to become a successful entrepreneur, from putting together a business plan to orchestrating a marketing campaign.

Discover how to: Brainstorm a business concept Draft a business plan Put together a startup team Choose the best legal structure Market yourself Manage growth and change

Get smart! www.dummies.com Register to win cool prizes Browse exclusive articles and excerpts Get a free Dummies Daily^™ e-mail newsletter Chat with authors and preview other books Talk to us, ask questions, get answers

About the Author

Kathleen Allen, Ph.D., is a professor of entrepreneurship at USC. Her books include The Complete MBA For Dummies?? and eBusiness Technology Kit For Dummies??.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (October 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764552627
• ISBN-13: 978-0764552625
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #337,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Kathleen Allen is the author of more than 15 books in the fields of entrepreneurship and the commercialization of new technologies. As an entrepreneur, she has co-founded four companies in the areas of real estate, healthcare, and manufacturing. She has also co-founded a non-profit venture, N2TEC Institute, that advises universities and state government entities in Rural America on how to develop new technology companies. She is the director of the University of Southern California Marshall Center for Technology Commercialization where she is also a professor of entrepreneurship. In that capacity she enjoys helping young entrepreneurs design and launch their businesses. She also consults to large companies on issues related to innovation and the commercialization of new technologies. One of the topics on which she is often called to speak on is how to use the entrepreneur's mindset and skills to manage a career. She is married to an entrepreneur and they have four children, two of whom are entrepreneurs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entrepreneurship for Dummies, November 3, 2007

By 

C. Ray Carlson (Pasadena California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Entrepreneurship For Dummies (Paperback)

It's perfect for my needs in teaching middle school, high school and college youth how to start a business and to write a business plan. They rarely have any idea as to the possibilities for them to become entrepreneurs and be their own boss. The one lack in a book seven years old is that it could not cover the new technology of the Internet and the 'social networking' opportunities for marketing products or services, i.e. MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc. But this kind of information is available all over the Internet.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great if you dont have a degree in business, March 21, 2009

By 

Frank Polanco (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Entrepreneurship For Dummies (Paperback)

As I wrote in the title of my review, this book is intended for people like me who has almost no knowledge or skills in business. I say this because I have a degree in civil engineering, and from that point of view I can say that for competing in a tough market full of changes, you at least need to have an idea of what you'll be facing and how to face it, and for that matter you have to be prepared. I'm not saying that this books says it all, instead it tries to give you a new mentality and a good approach for facing the challenges that can turn your ideas into disasters.

When I first saw this title I had no idea of the meaning of the word "Entrepreneurship", cause I'm a spanish speaker, but more important is that I was getting ready to read "business plans for dummies", but then I realized that in order to succeed I not only needed a terrific business plan, also I needed to have that way of thinking I told you about. But this book is not only about acquiring a new mentality, it is also very technical cause the book develop within it chapters the basics of doing something very very important that I realized not many people know about, which is doing a feasibility analysis. This should be the first step before starting to make a business plan, cause no matter how good your plan is, if a business is not viable it will fail anyways.

Finally, I have to say that starting businesses is not an easy task, you'll not only need an open-creative mind, you'll also have to be strong-objective for not getting other peoples opinions or your own desires get in the way, cause otherwise your efforts wont mean anything.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Didn't meet my needs, July 13, 2007

By 

Eric P. Larue (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Entrepreneurship For Dummies (Paperback)

I guess I bought the wrong book. This book started from scratch, as if I didn't even have an idea what kind of business I wanted to start. That certainly wasn't my case-I'm starting a video game company, I've got a team, we have a concept, and we know how much it will cost. All we have to do now is make it more attractive to investors, which, sadly, this book focuses very little on.

If you are wanting to start your own business just for the sake of starting a business, this book is for you. It has an entire section on going through the decision making process of what kind of business to start, researching how to make your product the most marketable it can be during the design process, etc., and will start you on your way.

If, on the other hand, you are like me, and you already have a great idea, and what you want to do is create the business for the sake of promoting that idea or product or whatever(which I suspect there are more of us out there than those described above), then this book will not serve you. It has very little in the way of acquiring capital-in fact what little it does have is better covered in the book "Raising Capital for Dummies,"(which I also own), and even still, most of that is focused more on how to cut your costs, or telling you that most entrepreneurs use their personal savings without any helpful hints about what to do if you're already living paycheck to paycheck and have no savings, nor does it really present feasible options if you've already reduced your expense projections as low as they can go without compromising the original concept.

All in all, I think those most likely to buy a book called "Entrepreneurship for Dummies" are unfortunately not likely to be served by the material covered in this book. I suspect those who want to create a new business just for the sake of creating a business already went to business school, have a business degree, and already know the capitalist principles covered here, and those that don't have all that background are only interested in creating a business to make their idea succeed, in which case they don't need an entire third of the book devoted to deciding your concept based on market research and then another third to tell you you're going to need to use your personal savings that you don't have to begin with.