Customer Reviews

The Venture Cafe : Secrets, Strategies, and Stories from America's High-Tech Entrepreneurs

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Venture Cafe is a really fun book about the stories
and people who make high-tech entrepreneurship happen.
Teresa Esser blends clear-eyed objectivity with wisdom
gleaned from countless conversations with in-the-trenches
high-tech entrepreneurs.

She explains high-tech entrepreneurship in a way that
offers relevant lessons for everyone from would-be
entrepreneurs to seasoned venture capitalists.

Despite the fact that I have been involved with
entrepreneurship for years, I found myself learning
things I never knew. I learned how entrepreneur
Philo T. Farnsworth struggled for years starting in
the early 1920s to develop a business around his
invention of electronic television -- and was nearly
put out of business because of patenting issues
and cutthroat competition. Who would have known
that TV did not come from RCA?

It made me wonder whether today's innovators will
have the knowledge and insights necessary to avoid
what happened to Farnsworth. With this book, they'll
get the knowledge they need.

From practical "how to" insights about structuring a company
or choosing co-founders based on personality,
to funny and personal stories about company founders
themselves, this book is a unique look at the human
part of the entrepreneurship equation - the people
who are driven to succeed against odds that may be stacked
against them, or to take risks and innovate despite a
downturn in the economy.

Often the knowledge a person needs to start a company is
difficult to learn on the job. Had I been able to read
this book beforehand, I would have gained insights
I could only have gathered from experience or
from asking other entrepreneurs.

I loved hearing how other entrepreneurs deal with
what I deal with - the challenges of balancing business
and family, the risks and rewards of leaving the safety
of corporate jobs to strike out on one's own.

These stories are encouraging, engaging and exhilarating.
Reading The Venture Cafe makes me want to start another company!

With a library of too many business books that simply talk theory, I found new sources of wisdom in Venture Cafe. Entrepreneurship reminds me of those pictures of burnt out bodies and equipment scattered along a lone road after Desert Storm. It's hard to imagine how anyone made it through the barrage of weapons fire when all you could see was disaster.

These are war stories dedicated to the hero's of the capital war. Having run that gauntlet myself I can appreciate the dedication and just plain dumb determination needed to succeed in raising capital.

If you want to start a venture using other people's money, then this is a good book to read. You'll learn lessons here that no one will or can tell you. The game has rules that constantly change according to so many variables it can make your head spin. The only constant is your mindset. If you don't have that all-out drive and determination to keep playing you don't even want to consider grabbing that ball.

Just ask anyone who has ever tried to raise money beyond their family and friends. Doesn't matter if you have the greatest idea at the perfect time, if you don't have those 'extras' in place, you loose.

One good example is the 'Catch 22' of CEO acquisition. Without a great management team in place, you don't get funded. Without funding how do you pay a management team?

I personally don't like playing the game, yet I appreciate those who have scored. It forces entrepreneurs to redirect far too much of their valuable time away from crucial tasks into the arena of lions --- who mostly want to devour them alive. To the money people, it's a game whereby they control the ball --- to entrepreneurs who only want a fair chance to prove themselves --- it becomes a survival issue that engulfs their physical, mental, spiritual, economic and relationship lifestyle.

This book exposes the depths of entrepreneurial spirit necessary to even attempt a run at success. Think of it as sage stories from wise mentors.

Teresa Esser has provides an insightful collection of anecdotes, horror stories, case studies and advice from seasoned veterans of the dot-com boom. Though she admits she's not the entrepreneurial type, her marriage to a successful entrepreneur gives her a unique vantage point on the joys and frustrations of starting a high-tech company with little more than a dream. This fun, quick read contains valuable tips on hiring a good lawyer, pitching ideas to VCs and surviving both failure and success. Much of the advice is still practical, even though the Internet bubble has burst. However, some of the interviews retain a bit of the breathless hype of the days when anyone with a domain name could land first-round VC funding. We from getAbstract recommend this book to would-be entrepreneurs, especially corporate types who are thinking of launching their own companies, and to those who want a level-headed view of the mysterious workings of high-tech startups and their funding.

When historians look back at the Internet bubble in fifty years, Esser's book will be one of the primary sources they cite again and again. It captures the zeitgeist of the Bubble the way only stellar journalism can, evoking the personalities and rituals of that bizarre time while making sense out of the interplay of forces that fed the dot-com phenomenon.

The book works not just as a document, but also as a cautionary tale and a guide for future entrepreneurs: by analyzing what was done WELL by the engineers of the Internet Economy, Esser manages to point out a path for companies (and workers) just getting on their feet in the new millenium.

I don't usually read business books, but this one really caught my eye. If you've ever worked for a startup, or wanted to work for a startup, or just wondered what they were like, you must read this book!

I wish I had been able to read this book before I began my job at a startup jobs a few years ago. It really hit home with me because I've had several employers that would be considered insane by most normal people. "The Venture Cafe" helped me demystify many of those experiences. They're not crazy, they're entrepreneurs! This book gave me a new and entertaining explainations for much of the dysfunctional behavior in my former office at a startup.

It's a great read with very entertaining anecdotal insights into the world of high-tech startups.

The spirit of entrepreneurship can be very contagious. Teresa Esser's book captures not only an entrepreneur's passion but also the environment which fosters it. Venture Cafe documents the atmosphere at MIT, where technologists, angel investors, venture capitalists lawyers, and advisors converge to discuss new business ideas. But Esser doesn't stop there. She gives a unique perspective to the players as the companies succeeded and failed both during and after the dot.com craze. The book is a must-read for anyone looking to learn from other entrepreneurs, think like venture capitalists, or find hot spots similar to those at MIT.

Through over 150 interviews and two years of research, Teresa Esser provides a narrative account of the experiences of company founders, their families, their investors and their partners. Based on their succeses, failures, or breakevens, she exposes you to the emotional peaks and valleys of entrepreneurship, and corresponding management advice. She provides recipies for handling various entrepreneurial challenges including patent preparation and filing, term sheet creation and negotiation, and PR generation. This excellent, well written, entertaining book is recommended for anyone who may face such entrepreneurial challenges.

What a refreshing alternative to cookbook business journalism and texts! Teresa Esser provides a unique look at the world of high tech entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial path from conception to design and development and bringing new ventures to market. As the spouse of Pehr Anderson, MIT-trained entrepreneur and co-founder of NBX Corporation, Esser brings direct experience with the world of high tech start-ups. She knows and has interviewed the players--techno-geeks and boot-strap business types, contract lawyers, venture capitalists--and shares their wisdom in their voices. This book tells it like it is: how-to and how not to, what it's really like to walk the 'venture' path. It's an exciting read that provides a wonderful look into the lives and the spirit that fuels innovation in the high tech world. Recommended for those considering a start-up as well as arm chair observers!

I love this book. I've been a part of two startup companies over the last five years and I think the author really 'gets' it.

She made the decision to divide the book by themes rather than by case studies (though there are mini-studies sprinkled throughout) and this serves the book well. She shares her analysis and illustrates her theses by example. I have found this to be rare in the business press which is too often a collection of case studies with minimal connective tissue.

I don't know how Esser won the trust of the entrepreneurs she interviews but she clearly has. And not by promising them rose-colored prose; she respects the technical and financial individuals she writes about without automatically accepting what they have to say at face value.

I've read this book straight through twice and recommended it to my friends - and both technies and money people have enjoyed it. I'd suggest it to anyone who wants to read an insider view of how the high-tech entrepreneur world that is thoughtful and balanced rather than worshipful or cynical.

What separates a successful entrepreneur from an unsuccessful one? The successful ones have these seemingly serendipitous things happen to them - meeting the right investors, hiring the right employees, getting supportive beta customers, getting prominent play in the press.

Teresa Esser's point is that what often seems to happen by happenstance, isn't so random at all. She believes that successful entrepreneurs have put into practice - knowingly or unknowingly - the "ideal" of what she calls "The Venture Café."

One of Esser's subjects, Joost Bonsen (who runs informal networking events in Cambridge, MA), has the book's best take on what a Venture Café is:

"It is a venue for adventurous thinking or a cauldron of creative ferment. Who knows what will pop up from it? In fact, nothing is likely to. But you never know. When it does happen, it does have powerful consequences."

Bonsen goes on to add that his role is to be "a catalyst - some type of connection machine. An engine of introduction. A tangible mechanism by which two people who ought to connect do." Esser spends the book driving to the heart of how best to capture and create the essence of what Bonsen describes.

Let other books tell you how to put together a business plan, how to sell your products, and other "blocking and tackling" elements of a start-up. Teresa Esser's fine work captures a key piece of the puzzle that you you'd be crazy to ignore.