Customer Reviews

The Startup Company Bible For Entrepreneurs: The Complete Guide For Building Successful Companies And Raising Venture Capital

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a book with great strengths and great weaknesses. If you are a seasoned entrepreneur, this is a useful resource at a fair price. If you are just thinking about starting your first company, be wary of this book; if you use it to chart your course, it could drive you onto a reef. In the hands of the naive, it will cause a lot of damage.

Strengths:

- Comprehensive - it covers a very wide range of topics
- Honest - the book tries to be forthcoming and avoid biases
- Based on Experience - Much of the book is based on the real world

Weaknesses:

- Organization - the organization is simply awful and there are few navigation resources to help you find your way through tangled threads of thought
- Myopic - this book assumes that you want to use Venture Capital - the most expensive money on the planet
- Inconsistent Quality - this is the most severe problem (more on this below).
- Ad Hoc - beyond ad hoc organization, much of the content (tables, chapters...) is ad hoc. It's impossible to tell when a list is supposed to be a list of examples, or when it's supposed to be comprehensive.

In the hands of someone who has started companies before, this is a great handbook and could be a good coaching tool to help others. In the hands of a beginner, it would be incredibly dangerous, since the inconsistent quality makes using it a potential disaster.

Inconsistent Quality: The book lacks quality on several levels.

On the elementary level, it's full of typos. No editor is named, either because there was no editor, or because there was not a single senior editor to sign the work.

On the broad level, there are so many examples of inconsistent quality that it's hard to know what to cite. The intellectual property discussion is, for the most part, quite good, and offers valuable advice that is often omitted. But, at the same time, this discussion is very sloppy in its terminology, so the same people who need the advice could be misled.

On the "sophisticated" level, there is an odd mix of truly useful teaching, and vapid babble. This is most evident when the book quotes business schools, like Harvard. Anyone who has actually run a business and then spent time around a business school knows that many of the professors have never actually DONE anything, and they don't know that they don't know. So, you see B-schools publish books and articles that don't say anything and the authors don't seem to know they have not said anything. These are "vacuum publications" because they are void of any real content. In this book, you'd hope that the vacuum publications would be absent, but sadly there are some quoted, cited, and in some cases, even their figures

A new edition could make this a great book - you can see a great book in there somewhere.

If you are trying to start or already have an early stage high tech or internet company, you REALLY NEED TO GET THIS BOOK! Unlike the others I have read that give general direction with no real guidance, THIS BOOK TELLS IT ALL. Here is a brief list of things this book will describe and even teach you in detail:

(1) How to properly structure your company--getting the vision and mission statement right and forming a business structure from it.

(2) How to understand the complex venture capital industry and how to think like a venture capitalist and angel investor so you can tell them what they want to hear so you can get the funding you need.

(3) All sources of funding with an explanation of the best resources for each stage of the business

(4) Never before seen in-depth description of the due diligence process

(5) How to form competitive strategies and position your company to fight off competitors

(6) How Venture firms value each stage of a company and how you can do it to so you go to the table knowing what you are talking about

(7) How to understand term sheets

(8) How to get the most intellectual property from your ideas and resources and how to get the most from your intellectual property

(9) How to run the business like a CFO--financials explained, forecasting interest rates, etc.

(10) How to determine the best exit strategies

(11) All the legal docs you need

I have experience as an entrepreneur and I only wish I had this book a long time ago. I would have saved valuable time and money from the advice and tricks he discusses. Finally, I paid over $800 for legal agreements from an attorney but this book has all the agreements you need, written by a venture attorney.

This is a book for the SERIOUS entrepreneur. It's not one of those generic books on startups you see floating all over. I have read dozens and I was beginning to give up hope finding one that really provides value until I read this book. The author has real experience working with early stage companies and he shares his wealth of knowledge for all to benefit from.

If you want an extremely comprehensive and invaluable guide for building a startup, raising venture capital, understanding term sheets, forming a business strategy, harnessing and protecting your intellectual property, and leading your company to success, this book is for you.

This book is appropriately named because it is like a Bible. And I could see it being required reading for all venture attorneys, consultants and even junior venture capitalists. I can see why the book has been used for a venture finance course. However, it reads much more smoothly than a textbook and contains practical information. The author only discusses theory when it is needed such as in valuations and understanding the venture capital industry.

Go ahead and waste your money buying 20 other start up books for $20. You will feel like you got taken once you read this book.

I must mention though that it is not a book that can be read in two or three days. It is 600 pages and the detail requires attention. But to treat this subject matter with any less detail would not provide value. And the author does a fabulous job balancing detail with practical uses.

This book is a thoughtful and comprehensive summary of most every critical aspect of the start-up process. As an entrepreneur who has started several companies over the years (and as an author of a book on the subject of entrepreneurship myself), I can say that I wish that I had a copy of this book early in my entrepreneurial career. If you studied this book and came to understand its content, you would be well prepared for the start-up process.

In reality, most readers will not plow through 500 pages of material to prepare themselves to be entrepreneurs. Instead, they will get going and reference the material in this book to explore the details of their current activity (whether it's getting started, putting a team together, writing a business plan, securing a round of financing, etc.) The book also helps entrepreneurs to better anticipate next steps. The bottom line is that this is a solid reference book for entrepreneurs and one that nicely complements other books on the subject.

Finally someone who knows what he is talking about took the time to put together an all-in-one resource for those of us out there who can't afford to pay business consultants and fund raisers thousands of dollars to advise us. The information the author presents in this book is priceless.

I have read a lot of books on startups and they seem to all say about the same thing; they are just put together a little differently. The Startup Company Bible for Entrepreneurs is a 180 degree spin on the other books because it is the closest thing to having professional advisors at your side.

I bought many books from companies that specialize in venture capital publications and I have paid a lot more, but this book beats them all hands down. I loved it and I would easily pay 10 times the cost for it.

Here is a brief summary of what you will learn:

1. How to form your company's vision and business model
2. Understanding (REALLY understanding) how the venture industry works
3. How to maximize your fund raising results and what sources are your best candidates at each stage of your business
4. How to transform your intellectual knowledge into intellectual capital.
5. How to do patent searches and write your own patents
6. How to conduct market research
7. How to run a company (what financial things to look at)
8. How to analyze and write a private placemet memorandum and term sheet
9. How to determine your company's value
10. How venture capitalists determine your company's value

Really there is too much to list---Check the expanded table of contents in the "view me" feature to see all the topics and you will see what I mean.

I can see why this book has been used for entrepeneurial college courses, but at the same time, it is not written like a text book. It is packed with practical advice and know-how for running a startup and raising capital. Cheers to the author!

Then this is the one. I've started four businesses and still found much to learn from Stathis' book. It is the single most comprehensive guide to getting funded and getting started. Worth many times the price. I've coached nine teams through start-up and crafter 28 "SmartPartnering" campaigns to leverage the visibility and the value of existing firms and this is the first book I recommend to people in both groups. Many buy a shorter book instead but the one that gets the strongest reviews from those who do read it is this one. - Kare Anderson, author of SmartPartnering and other books

The other reviewers have said it all about this book.

Ask yourself who you would rather listen to---professors who teach business and have had no expereince in it or people who have dealt directly with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. They are TEACHING business and not making a living as entrepreneurs for a very good reason. The gap between theory and practicality is large, especially for startups and the Startup Company Bible bridges this gap.

The legal documents in the appendix of the Startup Company Bible alone would cost you $1000 to get from an attorney.

I reaffirm the statement made by one of the other reviewers--after reading this book, I feel like I have an MBA in Entrepreneurialship.

After buying so many business books for $20 and getting no real value, I wondered if this one might live up to its price. It's worth many times the price. This book could easily be sold for $200 and I would pay it because the material written in The Startup Company Bible is priceless. I just wish I had it a few years ago.

I have been a venture capitalist for several years and I am delighted to see that someone has finally put together a much-needed guide for high-tech entrepreneurs. The author's comprehensive knowledge of the process involved in funding and growing a start-up or early stage venture puts even some venture associates to shame. I wish all of my clients had read this book prior to approaching me. It would have made my job much easier.

Super book. This book finally helped me understand all the complex essentials of succeeding as a high-tech startup. Almost all of the material I had never read anywhere else before. This is not a 5-star book. It is a 10-star book.

Not much more to say that hasn't already been said by the other reviewers.