You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business [Paperback]

Barry Moltz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

Advice about starting a business never sounded like this! Beginning with "you must be crazy," serial entrepreneur and angel investor Barry Moltz offers the true insider’s scoop on new business start-ups. With doses of irreverence and humor, the return-to-basics guide focuses on what comes before the bottom line. Addressing passion-the ultimate entrepreneurial fuel-relationships, failure, and authenticity, Moltz incorporates stories from his entrepreneurial colleagues and shows what it takes to integrate personal and professional life to achieve the highest satisfaction.

Moltz describes the ups and downs and emotional trials of running a start-up business and invites readers to let go of the myths and expectations that can hamstring them emotionally while getting their businesses up and running. In a helpful, heartfelt, and often humorous way, Moltz reassures entrepreneurs that they are not alone-whatever their form of craziness-and that they can retain self-worth and sanity as they ride the start-up roller coaster.

Showcasing the varieties of new venture craziness, entrepreneurs at all ages and stages in their business-building processes will realize they too can succeed. Jolts of passionate entrepreneurial wisdom energize these anecdotes, with such ideas as:

• People-not capital-are the true currency.
• Passion keeps everything going.
• Relationships and authenticity are the drivers in this business climate.
• There is no perfect idea and no magic bullet.
• Don‘t expect your path to be a straight line.

Incorporating lessons from the boom and bust 1990s, the realignment of business and personal values in the wake of terrorism, and proven ways to nurture the human dimension in business, these are voices to help all business owners find and trust their own entrepreneurial passions. After all, says the author, "The worst they can do is eat you!"

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Barry] Moltz makes entrepreneurialism intoxicating. -- The Chicago Sun-Times, October 12, 2003

About the Author

Barry Moltz has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 15 years.After successfully selling his last operating business, Barry hasbranched out into a number of entrepreneurship-related activities. Hefounded an angel investor group, an angel fund, and is a formeradvisory member of the board of the Angel Capital Education Foundation.His first book, "You Need to Be A Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business" describesthe ups and downs and emotional trials of running a business. It is inits fourth reprint and has been translated into Chinese, Russian,Korean and Thai. His second book, "Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success", teaches how to gain true business confidence.Barry is an internationally recognized expert on entrepreneurshipwho has given over 100 speeches to audiences ranging from 20 to 20,000.He was appointed by the Illinois Governor in 2005 to serve on the boardof the Institute for Entrepreneurship Education (IIEE). As a member ofthe Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, he also has taught entrepreneurshipas an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Kaplan Publishing (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 079318018X
• ISBN-13: 978-0793180189
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,193,568 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Barry Moltz has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 15 years.

After successfully selling his last operating business, Barry has branched out into a number of entrepreneurship-related activities. He founded an angel investor group, an angel fund, and is a former advisory member of the board of the Angel Capital Education Foundation.

His first book, "You Need to Be A Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business" describes the ups and downs and emotional trials of running a business. It is in its fourth reprint and has been translated into Chinese, Russian, Korean and Thai. His second book, "Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success", shows what it takes to comeback and develop true business confidence. His third book is called, "BAM! Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World" which shows how social media and self service have changed customers service forever!

Barry is a nationally recognized expert on entrepreneurship who has given hundreds of presentations to audiences ranging from 20 to 20,000. He was appointed by the Illinois Governor in 2005 to serve as Chairman of the board of the Institute for Entrepreneurship Education (IIEE). As a member of the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, he also has taught entrepreneurship as an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He has appeared on many TV and radio programs such as The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, NPR and The Tavis Smiley Show.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't deserve a 5-star rating, December 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business (Paperback)

It's weird. I notice that all the reviewers give this book a 5-star rating, and at the same time, all reviewers come from IL. The author, Barry Moltz, is from IL as well. I would conclude that Barry Moltz has a lot of good friends ready to write a review on Amazon.

Anyway...

I think the book is great for people who are thinking about creating their own business but haven't started yet. It gives a lot of food for thought. However, if you have already created your own business, you will be a little disappointed because you will not learn much.

This book is about the rollercoaster ride that is awaiting people who wants to start their own business. What you should expect to go through emotionally: everything that you should know and the problems you will go through with your family, your business partners, your health, etc.

Don't look for insightful comments and business recommendations. That's not what the book is about.

If you have already been through the trouble of creating your own business, you will probably already know what Barry Moltz is talking about.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Both Fluffy & Entertaining..., April 22, 2005

By 

E. VONROTHKIRCH (Garland, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business (Paperback)

This is a guru book, mostly filled with 'emotional wisdom'. There isn't much solid info to be had, just entertaining stories and anecdotes. To paraphrase what I found useful: "You can read and study business til the end of time, but you just have to jump in and do it!" Consider this book an emotional primer, nothing more, nothing less.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Almost unreadable, and not worth the effort, December 23, 2004

By 

B. Gnoz "bgnoz" (Martinez, GA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business (Paperback)

After reading so many glowing reviews here an Amazon, I bought this book. I began reading and quickly found myself wondering when the introductory comments would end and the book itself would begin. Then it dawned on me... the entire book is written as a relatively loose collection of thoughts. Ugh!

I pressed on, hoping that some enlightenment might be found among all these scattered thoughts. On and on I went, far past the point of pain. I found myself reading with an oddly-placed determination that this book MUST have something more to it in order for it to have been so universally praised.

Well, I've made it through roughly half of the pages, and that is more than enough for me. Reading this book is like sitting down to lunch with your manic-depressive uncle during his manic phase. Worse, he's just had his second latte' and can't seem to focus on a single topic for more than a couple of sentences. There appears to be little thought given to structure or construct, and the result is a hyperactive jog through the author's mind. Unfortunately, you quickly start to recognize the scenery as you are led in various ways through the same small plot, and ultimately you are led nowhere.

To top it off, his experience actually seems quite narrow and brief. Thankfully, he relates the stories of a dozen other entrepreneurs, but these are too broad and anecdotal to provide much insight. The net result is a book of brief, common-sense admonishments.

I've rarely been so disappointed in a book. How it has received so many good reviews is beyond me.