Customer Reviews

Kick Start Your Dream Business

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is exceptionally thorough; detailed and practical, with tons of worksheets and exercises to perform. However, it seems very focused on product-based business, versus service businesses. The author does include service businesses in his examples, but the exercises and worksheets seem to me to be very helpful for those people providing an actual product, with suppliers and vendors and product margins and the like. Overall a recommended book, especially if you're looking for an exceptionally detailed blueprint for moving from idea to execution.

The vast majority of books on business and entrepreneurship focus heavily on theory and case study, and lack practical, easy-to-follow steps to help you get started. This book helps you to identify what you're passionate about, and how to go about creating a dream business around whatever it is that you enjoy.

Romanus takes his years of experience working with literally hundreds of individuals and companies and boils it down to the essentials.

This isn't your average business book - it is a series of worksheets and activities to help you define, refine, and act. If you've never owned a business, but have always dreamed of breaking out on your own - this book is for you. If you've been in a startup before, and are thinking about trying it again regardless of your previous success, you'll still find a lot of helpful information to help you avoid the mistakes and pitfalls of too many startups.

Also -- if you get a chance, I highly recommend attending one of Romanus' events. He is energetic and provides great information. Its not just a rah-rah, motivational session -- you'll find it very valuable.

Whether you are a new business or established company, this book is for you. I have started a company and wish I had read this book at the very beginning. It is great reading with very good out-of-the-box tips that helped me move past the competition. It is also a workbook so I am able to chart my progress while opening up a second company. "Kick Start" also served as a practical guide to help me further define my vision, products, branding, market, and competition. You don't need an MBA to understand this book. Anyone can use it kick start their dream.

As a speaker to entrepreneurs I frequently reccomend this book.
It is packed full of paractical ideas on starting a business plus many specific steps to follow for certain aspects of business like researching products, manufacturing and
distribution. People will also appreciate all the real life stories of the challenges people faced in business and how they solved those challenges.

Romanus has a straight forward clear and concise way of advising the reader. I got a lot out of this book and I know many others will too.

I just started my business several months ago and it has been a roller coaster ride! There have been some really discouraging days and this book helps me find new ideas and inspiration to keep on going. Romanus provides great advice and motivation to follow your dreams, I feel like I have a personal small business consultant beside me as I read this book!

Kick Start should be required reading in every workshop for entrepreneurs. Romanus offers a structured program that moves from profiling your idea, through information gathering and research, through manufacturing, marketing and customer service, with chapters on patents and trademarks, legal issues, finance and record keeping, and raising money. I refer to it often in advising entrepreneurs at SBDC on business plans and marketing programs.

In addition to practical information, the book is filled with encouraging advice to keep the entrepreneur focused, motivated, and organized. Lots of planning tools, worksheets, amd case studies of real people overcoming obstacles. The book recognizes that the hardest part is not finding the idea but getting into action and staying in action--hence the importance of getting and staying organized.

What I especially liked is the reminder that building a business doesn't take place in a vacuum--Kick Start encourages asking for help, sharing information, and sharing success stories. Romanus is already at work on a follow up edition!

A Complete Encyclopedia of Business in One Book-

A Complete Encyclopedia of Business in One Book - that is how Romanus Wolter has laid out his amazing business guide. From accounting to websites, everything you ever wanted or needed is in this book, K ick Start Your Dream Business. Refer to it again and again as your personal business bible.
- Joanne Vicotria, The Vision Coach, Author: Lighting Your Path! How To Create the Life You Want, and Vision With a Capital V - Create the Business of Your Dreams.

You've got a great idea for a product or service. You see it working in your mind, pleasing everyone who uses it. You're sure it would be a hit in the marketplace, ... if only you had _________________________ (fill in the blank).

Kick Start Your Dream Business offers a complete cookbook to filling that blank. In this work, Romanus Wolter explains in the simplest terms all the steps needed to make your idea a reality. His myriad practical suggestions, hints, and resources convert the most seemingly complex of recipes into a Betty Crocker cake mix. His approach leads you through the whole process, from adding more substance to your idea, examining the market, giving it life, to manufacturing or producing the product, marketing and finance, and making a business plan.

You'd be surprised how easy it is by following the recipes in Kick Start Your Dream Business. I know I was. Especially now that my book is on the verge of being published. All thanks to Romanus Wolter's book.

Before reading "Kick Start Your Dream Business" I had been struggling with the challenge of bringing my new business idea to life. I found myself on a circuitous path of asking people for advice, bumping into walls, retracing my steps, constantly changing my strategies and basically wasting precious time. This book helped me focus my process with very practical advice, while Romanus Wolter's own obvious exuberance and energy filled me with a renewed joy and motivation for turning my dream business into a reality. I'm sure I'm not the first to say that I wish I could have read this book earlier. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who is trying to sort through the how-to's of getting a dream business off the ground.

Kick Start Your Dream Business was a disappointment to me. When first looked at, it looks extremely detailed and thorough, but when read, all it really is is an outline of the steps you need to take to start your business. It covers all the steps, but doesn't go very far at all in actually teaching you how to man each step successfully. Most sections barely talk about really what you have to do and focus on telling you how to plan out your process using tables and questions the book gives you. It tells you WHAT to do, not HOW to do it.

An example of this that stuck out at me was the marketing section, which focused on marketing mediums and said nothing about what an actual advertisement might need, what to do against the competition, etc. I've read a few books from Trout and Ries, Crossing the Chasm, and Inside the Tornado, and this book didn't even touch upon positioning, offense/defense/guerrilla, target markets, niche marketing, etc. All it said was to do some print advertising, create some "marketing events," etc. There was no instruction on actually selling a product and getting people's attention.

Even though this book is an outline, I felt like the outline is way out of order. The book covers designing, researching, producing, selling, and marketing before it ever gets around to telling you about writing a business plan, financing, etc. I don't think this book uses the term "venture capital" once.

The book seemed to be rather one dimensional in its view on potential business in that it basically assumes from the beginning that your business involves a physical product, nothing else.

Finally, I thought the tone of the book was rather poor. The tone is slow, simple, and relaxing, with a major focus on your dream and not reality. I felt like this was extremely dangerous considering how challenging and risky it is to start a business. The book makes it sound like starting a business it rather laid-back and easy.

Overall, the book might point out the steps that are needed in starting a business, but it does almost nothing to tell you how to actually do that, let alone succeed.