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Showing posts with label startup books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label startup books. Show all posts

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Advice for Startups from Billionaire Money Manager Ken Fisher

The following informative interview was provided by Kenneth L. Fisher, founder and chairman of the money management firm Fisher Investments, former long time columnist for Forbes Magazine, billionaire on the Forbes 400 list, and author of numerous books. His latest book is The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!) Second Edition, which I highly recommend. (It is my favorite of all his books, maybe because it is so different from all the other finance publications. Resources include websites and suggested books. It basically tells you ten ways, with all the steps, to get really rich, including “marrying a billionaire.” Lot’s of insight and lots of humor.)
You may have seen him on TV commercials, or you may have spotted his magazine ads. Fisher is on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans and the Forbes world billionaires list. According to Investment Advisor magazine, he is one of the 30 most influential people in the investment advisory business over the last 30 years. Fisher is considered to be the largest wealth manager in the United States.
We cover a lot in this interview, including:
  • What it takes to travel down Road #1 – Starting Your Own Business
  • The various roads to success and the roads he has taken
  • Bitcoin & cryptocurrencies
  • Whether or not we are still in a bull market
  • Stock market outlook for the next year
  • Annuities
  • Does age make a difference for starting your own business
  • One piece of advice for someone who is just starting out with their own business
  • And much, much more
Books by Ken Fisher
Here are some other books by Ken Fisher, which are worth checking out:
How to Smell a Rat: The Five Signs of Financial Fraud
(If you want to avoid getting ripped off, you really need to read this book.)
The Interview
You will certainly enjoy all this great information that Ken Fisher provides.
To stream the interview, click:

HERE

You can download as an mp3 by right-clicking here and choosing “save as.”
Enjoy the interview and Happy Investing!
All opinions are those of Ken Fisher, and do not represent the opinions of this site or the interviewer. Neither this site nor the interviewer nor the interviewee are rendering tax, legal, or investment advice in this interview.
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Monday, November 27, 2017

Entrepreneurship & Business Books on Sale

The following entrepreneurship, investment, business and finance Kindle books are currently on sale at Amazon (AMZN). Also, the hardback edition is for sale for some of these stocks, so they would make good gifts. If you are interested in any of these books, you should order them as soon as possible, because often these sales only last for just a few days.
The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!) Second Edition
by Kenneth L. Fisher and Elisabeth Dellinger
ten distinct roads, each with its own challenges and rewards, to wealth
Sale price $16.47 Regular price: $29.95
Procrastinate on PurposeBy Rory Vaden
five strategies for increased productivity
Sale price $2.99 Regular price: $9.99
#AskGaryVeeBy Gary Vaynerchuk
entrepreneurship, leadership, advertising on social media
Sale price $2.99 Regular price: $15.49
Performing Under PressureBy Hendrie Weisinger and J. P. Pawliw-Fry
how you can perform at your best
Sale price $1.99 Regular price: $13.99
Your Money or Your LifeBy Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez with Monique Tilford
take control of your finances in nine practical steps
Sale price $1.99 Regular price: $13.99
Grit to GreatBy Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
how grit, more than talent, luck, or intellect, has helped people rise to the top
Sale price $1.99 Regular price: $9.99
Cracking CreativityBy Michael Michalko
how to apply the techniques of successful innovators
Sale price $1.99 Regular price: $15.99
Perennial SellerBy Ryan Holiday
key to creating and marketing products
Sale price $1.99 Regular price: $13.99
Small Message, Big ImpactBy Terri L. Sjodin
how to craft and deliver concise, effective messages with maximum impact
Sale price $1.99 Regular price: $11.99
Difficult ConversationsBy Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen
handling conflict in all areas of life
Sale price $1.99 Regular price: $13.99
Remember, these sales may not last long (hopefully, long enough by the time you read this post), so if you have any interest in any of them, you should act right away.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Top Selling FREE Books on Startups

Numerous books are available about startups, and one of the best ways to see what the best ones are is by checking the best sellers. To put icing on the cake, many of these books are available for free for Kindle, at least for a limited time. The following books are the top selling books on Amazon, and are currently available for free, at least at the time this article is being written. Here are the books, most of which have either 4 or 5 stars:

Starting a Successful Blog when you have NO CLUE! - 7 Steps to WordPress Bliss

597 Business Ideas You can Start from Home - doing what you LOVE!

A comment I have to  make about the above two books, which show up as numbers 1 and 2 in the Amazon category of Starting a Business. They are both written by Gundi Gabrielle. I have not read the above books (yet), but I have read the book Travel for Free which she wrote, and which I really enjoyed. It is an outstanding book on travel hacks, and I am planning on covering it in a future post.

How To Get Rich From Home On A Part Time Basis With Only $20!: Start Making Money In The Next 48 Hours!

How to start online eCommerce store: eCommerce store complete guide

40 Rules for Internet Business Success: Escape the 9 to 5, Do Work You Love, and Build a Profitable Online Business

15 Handpicked Unique Suppliers for Handmade Businesses 2015 - 2016: An Exclusive Guide To Fuel Etsy Selling Success and the Handmade Entrepreneur

49 Quick Ways to Market Your Business for Free: An Instant Guide to Marketing Success

Remember, these free book sales may not last long, so order them now if you have any interest.

Happy reading!!!

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Tim Ferriss Interview

Fred Fuld & Tim Ferriss
I think most people are aware of Timothy Ferriss, famous author, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, fitness enthusiast, public speaker, and much, much more.
Last night, he spoke at an Inforum at the Commonwealth Club event, held at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, California. He was interviewed by  Naval Ravikant of AngelList. The entire session, including questions and answers, lasted an hour and a half.
For those of you who don’t know,  Tim Ferriss is the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, who wrote 4-Hour Workweek , 4-Hour Body, and 4-Hour Chef. He just released his latest book, Tools of Titans .
He talked about a lot of different topics covering a wide range of areas. (I don’t want to give any of it away.)
Fortunately, for those who were not able to attend, the presentation was broadcast live on Facebook (FB) and the recording is available on Facebook right now. Enjoy!

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Four Failure Points that Undermine Biz Success: #1 is Dont Follow Your Passion

by Ed McLaughlin

Veteran entrepreneur and former Fortune 100 executive, Ed McLaughlin comments below about the reality that Americans can see failure as a stepping stone to success, “It’s difficult to celebrate failure as a stepping stone to startup success if entrepreneurs can’t pay their bills, provide for their families, meet payroll or realize their business visions.” Ed's own research tells us that 75% of new businesses fail within the first five years. Ed continues with this challenge for small business owners and entrepreneurs in some of the big ‘innovation-driven’ cities, “What if we could turn the tables on the startup failure rate by introducing a new set of business principles that increases the probability of startup success?” He also offers the four failure points things that undermine the success of a small business below, excerpted from his book, using his own company as an example. Ed has also highlighted the framework for sustainability and profitability in his new book, The Purpose Is Profit: The Truth about Starting and Building Your Own Business, by focusing entrepreneurs on these principles, including: Distinctive Competence, Dynamic Planning, and the Ten Commandments of Startup Profit.

Only nine months after starting USI, I launched a second business called Sigma Communications Inc., or Sigma for short. Starting Sigma had been the culmination of a long-term vision to create a vehicle that would more efficiently connect buyers and sellers of commercial real estate. After three years of bleeding red ink, I was forced to shut down Sigma.
Here are the 4 failure points that undermined the success of Sigma Communications.  

             Failure Point #1: Starting a business based on passion alone, rather than building a business based on distinctive competence.  
When I started Sigma, I believed that my passion for publishing the magazine would trump everything else. That proved to be a costly assumption. The hardest lesson I learned from the Sigma experience is that a venture filled with passion is not enough. You will substantially increase your probability of startup success if you build a business based on your distinctive competence.

Failure Point #2: Starting up without preorders to validate your business model. 
I made the fateful decision to launch the magazine without selling advertising and securing paying customers first. In the end analysis, I took a huge gamble on a concept business with an untested business model. Sigma spent millions before I shuttered the business in failure. Securing preorders is the single most important point of validation for a startup.

Failure Point #3: Launching your business without adequate time and funding to reach profitability. 
Unfortunately, I had not properly factored the size and scale of Sigma, nor how long it would take to ramp-up to profitability. Since I had never manufactured and shipped a product before, I underestimated the continuous cash drain from ongoing production and distribution. Rather than bootstrapping the business with the profits from USI, I should have lined-up outside funding with a more reasonable timeline to breakeven. Make sure to allocate the time and the funding needed to achieve profitability. 

Failure Point #4: Closing your ears to the advice of industry experts. 
Rather than listening to my advisors, I convinced myself that I could beat the normal ramp-up to profitability in the publishing industry. My unbridled passion for becoming a publisher, combined with my lack of distinctive competence put blinders on me. Cultivate relationships and heed the advice of industry experts.

Ed McLaughlin is the founder & CEO of Blue Sunsets LLC, a real estate and angel investment firm based in Darien, CT. Previously, McLaughlin founded and served as chairman & CEO of United Systems Integrators (USI) Corporation, a corporate real estate outsourcing firm, sold to Johnson Controls (JCI) in 2005. In 2001, he earned Entrepreneur of the Year honors from Ernst & Young, and USI was named to the Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest growing companies. His book,  The Purpose Is Profit: The Truth about Starting and Building Your Own Business, is available on Amazon.


Monday, June 6, 2016

The Latest Books on Startups

Are you looking to start a startup? Are you looking to improve your startup? Many books are hot off the presses that cover how to create your own business and entrepreneurship. One of them even covers 3D printing. Here are several worth checking out for your summer reading.

Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale by Jennifer Davis and Katherine Daniels
Some companies think that adopting devops means bringing in specialists or a host of new tools. With this practical guide, you’ll learn why devops is a professional and cultural movement that calls for change from inside your organization. Authors Katherine Daniels and Jennifer Davis provide several approaches for improving collaboration within teams, creating affinity among teams, promoting efficient tool usage in your company, and scaling up what works throughout your organization’s inflection points.
DevOps stresses iterative efforts to break down information silos, monitor relationships, and repair misunderstandings that arise between and within teams in your organization. By applying the actionable strategies in this book, you can make sustainable changes in your environment regardless of your level within your organization.
Before Disrupting Healthcare: What Innovators Need To Know by Pallav Sharda
Healthcare is an industry unlike any other — it’s a matter of life and death, and no field poses as much reward or as many challenges for tech entrepreneurs. 
Before Disrupting Healthcare is a must-read for anyone working on, or investing in, health information products. Health IT veteran Pallav Sharda draws on a dozen years of real-world experience to bring you to the leading edge of health software innovation. 
Before Disrupting Healthcare combines an introduction with the foundational ideas and products of today with a look into what emerging IT trends will rule the future. Outsiders can use this book to become insiders, and insiders can become experts. 
You’ll learn why Electronic Health Records, Health Information Exchanges, Accountable Care Organizations, and Meaningful Use regulation matter so much today―and what will matter even more tomorrow.

The Decentralized and Networked Future of Value Creation: 3D Printing and its Implications for Society, Industry, and Sustainable Development by Jan-Peter Ferdinand and Ulrich Petschow
This book identifies, analyzes and discusses the current trends of digitalized, decentralized, and networked physical value creation by focusing on the particular example of 3D printing. In addition to evaluating 3D printing’s disruptive potentials against a broader economic background, it also addresses the technology’s potential impacts on sustainability and emerging modes of bottom-up and community-based innovation.  Emphasizing these topics from economic, technical, social and environmental perspectives, the book offers a multifaceted overview that scrutinizes the scenario of a fundamental transition: from a centralized to a far more decentralized system of value creation.

Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth by Ash Maurya
You’ve talked to customers. You’ve identified problems that need solving, and maybe even built a minimum viable product. But now there’s a second bridge to cross. How do you tell whether your idea represents a viable business? Do you really have to go through the whole cycle of development, failure, iteration, tweak, repeat? 
Scaling Lean offers an invaluable blueprint for mod­eling startup success. You’ll learn the essential metrics that measure the output of a working business model, give you the pulse of your company, communicate its health to investors, and enable you to make precise interventions when things go wrong. 

Spark: Take Your Business From Struggle to Significance by David A. Hilton
In this fast-paced allegorical non-fiction, our hero is about to learn all the lessons of business the hard way so that you do not have to. His story is a combination of a fast-paced novel with compelling, impactful and eminently executable business lessons. Join Jack’s journey and take your business from struggle to success, where you’ll find more time, more money and, more importantly, more freedom.

Start Your Business on a Ramen Noodle Budget: 12 Lessons on Becoming a Young Entrepreneur When You are Broke! by Felecia Hatcher
You don't need millions of dollars to get your business idea off the ground, but you do need to START, with what you have and where you probably are financially-on a Ramen Noodle budget! Think about it: Ramen Noodles are one of the cheapest meals on the planet, but when you get creative and add ingredients you have at your fingertips, you can transform it from an inexpensive meal from your college "glory days" into a "grown-up" gourmet meal. So, if you can get creative with Ramen Noodles, you can get creative with limited resources and overcome any roadblocks to starting your own business. You know you have what it takes to launch a startup. It's time to harness that gritty scrappiness, tap into your network to gather the resources you need to launch your business, and stand out-even with limited funds.

Combatting Disruptive Change: Beating Unruly Competition at Their Own Game by Ian I. Mitroff
This book is a critical examination of the main ideas regarding disruptive change and startups. It systematically lays out the full set of challenges and tasks one needs to master in order for existing organizations to weather severe change or make a startup successful. Ian Mitroff outlines the protective actions business leaders must take to ensure their continued existence, providing a clear demonstration of the key roles leaders must assume such as Applied Epistemologist, Applied Ethicist, Applied Systems Thinker, Applied Social Psychologist, and Applied Crisis Manager, and how to perform these roles competently.
Citing cases such as Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb, this book uniquely analyzes the disrupting agent in emerging industries, which is crucial for success in today’s complex and turbulent world. It will be of value to students, academics, and entrepreneurs looking to develop a new product or service.

The Following Book is a Best Seller


The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly
Much of what will happen in the next thirty years is inevitable, driven by technological trends that are already in motion. In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—interacting, cognifying, flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Top Selling Books for Startups


Are you considering a startup? Are you looking to improve the business, sales, and operations of your startup? There are plenty of books for startups available on Amazon. Here are the top sellers.

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businessesby Eric Ries

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Futureby Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from Their Founding Entrepreneurs by Sam Altman and Gregory Koberger

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup by Bill Aulet

The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future by Chris Guillebeau

The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf

All of the above have at least four and a half stars. I really enjoy The Lean Startup and The $100 Startup. I haven't had a chance to read the others yet.

Read on!!!

Friday, November 13, 2015

Great Books on Startups for the Holidays

Holiday shopping has already started, and the time for you to start is now. Might as well get it over with, so that you can go back to starting on your startup.

Here is a selection of books related to startups. By the way, you might want to pick up one of these books as a gift for yourself.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Startup: Essential Startup Guide - Entrepreneur, Small Business & Online Business by Bill Robb

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World by Steven Kotler

How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It by Mark Cuban

Small Time Operator: How to Start Your Own Business, Keep Your Books, Pay Your Taxes, and Stay Out of Trouble by Bernard B. Kamoroff

How to Make $1,000 Per Day Clear Profit on Amazon with One Single $35 Product You Choose by Bradford Sullivan

The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank

The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime. by MJ DeMarco

Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey A. Moore

The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success (Touchstone Books) by Nicholas Lore

Hopefully a few of these books will be useful to you and your business. Read on!

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Hey Startupers! Here are the Top 10 Books on Startups

Are you looking to start a startup? Or maybe you are already a startuper, trying to grow your startup, find venture capital, increase followers, or go public. Need advice on what to do? Try some of these books. They are the top selling books on Amazon in the category of New Business Enterprises (that's what Amazon calls Startups).

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World by Steven Kotler

How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It by Mark Cuban

Small Time Operator: How to Start Your Own Business, Keep Your Books, Pay Your Taxes, and Stay Out of Trouble by Bernard B. Kamoroff (Note: This is a classic book that has been around for many years - recently updated)

How to Make $1,000 Per Day Clear Profit on Amazon with One Single $35 Product You Choose by Bradford Sullivan

The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank

The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime. by MJ DeMarco

Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey A. Moore

The Pathfinder: How to Choose or Change Your Career for a Lifetime of Satisfaction and Success (Touchstone Books) by Nicholas Lore

Hopefully a few of these books will be useful to you and your business. Read on!