Customer Reviews

Second Bounce of the Ball

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
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This book is a gift to budding entrepreneurs and business community veterans alike. It offers clear and cogent lessons for launching and managing businesses, intelligently confronting the most common challenges faced by entrepreneurs, methodically explaining the necessary steps for success, and coining a new, powerful metaphor (the second bounce of the ball) for taking advantage of uncertainty.

In each chapter, Cohen focuses on a unique aspect of entrepreneurship, offering his keen and well-developed insights and instructions, which are substantiated by stories from the lives of many major players in the business world, including his own.

The book isn't a biography, but it closely follows the development of Cohen's venture capital firm Apax. Reading about how Cohen built up Apax to what it is today, one gets the sense that the author really has a handle on what he's writing about. All the challenges discussed in the book, he faced them; most of the people mentioned, he met them. The book is not conjecture or theory. This is what happened, and this is what works.

The driving force behind the whole work is Cohen's fundamental belief in an entrepreneurial approach to life. It involves being independent, taking chances and seizing opportunities--and it is applicable to more than just business. His discussion of leadership will be found resonant by anyone who has ever sat on a committee or worked in a team. His method for approaching decision making can be applied to any difficult decision in life. Even if you're not very interested in business, you will get something out of this read.

That being said, if you are in the business world or trying to get into it, this book is a must have. You can get a head start on the rest of the community before "the second bounce" becomes a common catch phrase in boardrooms around the world.

Ronald Cohen does not waste your time. He conveys his knowledge and insights in clear language, doesn't beat around the bush, and underscores all key points with practical examples based on personal experience. Anyone who wants to build a business or grow a business to the next level should read this book. An outstanding feature of the book is its coverage of the entire life cycle of a business venture, including the main routes of growth and development that are available. Each scenario is explained within the context of the forces that lead into the scenario and that accompany the scenario.

One of the main themes in the book is calibration of decisions. Major strategic decisions that a business may need to make are discussed. Although - and perhaps because - the author has spent his career in private equity, he does not limit the discussion to the financing aspect of growing a business, but has organised the content around the complete set of aspects that influence the success of a business. In contrast to lots of other books about building great teams, this book is focused on the specific task of building a high performance executive team, and how specific leadership roles need to be adapted depending on the stage of growth of the company. Simply a superb book.

Essential reading for anyone interested in becoming a successful entrepreneur. Ronald Cohen writes in an engaging, highly conversational style about the outstanding achievements of the private equity firm Apax which he co-founded and led. He was one of the leaders in transforming Britain and Europe over the past 20 years, in which he and his partners worked with entrepreneurs to rapidly build and to supercharge major companies, combining rigorous analysis with formidable personal networks and highly imaginative ideas.

He generously shares his insights,techniques and lessons. Most important, yet understated, it becomes clear his spectacular success was founded on the bedrock of integrity. A book to be treasured.

This book must be read by every current and future entrepreneur, venture capitaiist, private equity investor and CEO. The Second Bounce of the Ball not only describes the criteria for being a great entrepreneur, but it also describes the management style used by Sir Ronald Cohen to build Apax Partners into one of the premier private equity firms in the World. It is unfortunate that the CEO's of Enron, Worldcom, etc. did not have the opportunity to read this book. If they had, those companies would still be in business.
Tom Judge, Private Equity Investor

I got this book after having seen Sir Ronald Cohen interviewed by Simon Hobbs on CNBC's 'The Leaders'. I remember thinking: 'This is a guy of obvious achievement who seems to have gathered a lot of wisdom over his exciting and tremendously successful career. Yet he remains soft-spoken and self-effacing. I could probably learn a lot from reading his book.' While in no way deprecating Sir Ronald or in any way wishing to detract from his impressive Apax Partners legacy - or the role he played as one of the founders of a whole new industry - I'm sorry to say I have been disappointed.

I have had tangential exposure to the process of raising early stage and growth finance - and the colorful people who populate this micro-economic niche - from working at and with technology start-ups in the early 2000s. But I claim no particular knowledge or privileged understanding of the field of private equity and read this book as a novice. Hence, my criticism is not aimed at either the structure or the advice offered per se: 'The Second Bounce of the Ball' has a logical, engaging structure and my reaction to the life lessons from the PE trenches was usually one of agreement. Therein, in fact, lies the rub: If you strip away the interesting story of the birth and growth of Apax Partners and the private equity industry, what remains is a list of life lessons that, with rare exceptions, I found to be platitudinal at best. Let me give you a couple of examples:

'Every recruitment decision is an investment decision: it has a cost, a level of risk, and, if it works, a great reward.'
'The secret of lucky entrepreneurs is the will to turn every setback to advantage.'

My reaction to this was a Homer-esque 'Duh.'

As regards style, Sir Cohen's personal account and life story as the fons et origo of Apax Partners and one of the co-creators of the private equity industry is an interesting one, but sadly bereft of excitement and told without verve. As a personal account too, this book could have been so much more! This may or may not be partly explained by the fact that the book was written 'with' Terry Ilott. I guess we will never know how much was penned by Sir Ronald and how much by his co-writer.

The most interesting piece of insight that I gleaned from this book is that 'A second bounce usually follows a change in the trend or in the cycle' and that this is often where the fate of a young company is decided. Are you ready to take advantage of this second bounce, of the changing circumstances or environment, to take your venture to the next level? This is indeed crucial and where many fall down. But as this piece of advice is the book's title, why buy it?

Unfortunately, 'The Second Bounce of the Ball' doesn't work on two levels: I found little of value in its rather hackneyed insights and metaphors, and as a personal tale it lacks engagement and excitement. I find this all the more disappointing because of Sir Ronald Cohen's stature and achievements.

There are a lot of books about management out there. Too few are written by practitioners. Every one in a while, there's a great practitioner who actually peers his wisdom and expertise at the height of his game. This book is a perfect example of the kind of book that one would hope all great management practitioners would ultimately write. A must read for anyone who's interested in the personal history of a great entrepreneur or in the practice of entrepreneurship and management.

I have finished to read this book in two days: really an amazing experience.
I think Sir Cohen has an unique intellectual and human approach to Entrepreneurship and Finance.

What an absolute pleasure it was to read this book by Sir Ronald Cohen. I have highlighted key passages throughout the book. I have notes crammed into the margins. It is a complete treasure trove of gems, insights and witticisms on the way to world class entrepeneurship. Thank you Sir Ronald for sharing the wealth of your experience and knowledge in such a commonsense, readable and practical way.

Another great book I would recommend is The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor (Columbia Business School Publishing)

The book is a treasure of insights and lessons learned over the course of a 30 year career in the venture capital and private equity industries. The author has built a world class organization from scratch, and in the process backed and helped build, together with his partners, hundreds of companies in more than a dozen countries in three continents. Few people have comparable credentials when it comes to building businesses.

This book is definitely not a "How To" book. Rather, it is a fantastic book for any entrepreneur, in any industry or geography, who is concerned with questions like how do I build sustainable value, how do I balance short term needs with longer term objectives, how do I attract, retain and motivate the best people available, etc. Rather than giving recipe style answers, the book shares the author's experience in addressing these and other challenges, and gives the reader food for thought which undoubtedly will help her or him with the challenges that they are experiencing in their own businesses.

For full disclosure, I have been associated with Apax Partners in the past and know some of the people and the companies in the book.

The book was interesting and learned some things about Private equity ... what it is, historical perspective, and future directions. The author was at the ground floor of the European private equity boom and describes the lean years through the tech wreck of early 2000's.

The sections on interviewing / people first / helping the less fortunate / ethics were standard boiler plate dribble.

I wish more core operational details for Private Equity would have been provided.