8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, And Grow A Successful Business - Second Edition

Book excerpt: 8 Building Blocks To Launch, Manage, and Grow A Successful Business - Second Edition is about opportunity and achieving success, reinforced by the opening Mark Twain quote "So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover." The book helps readers navigate from business idea to launching a successful new venture. An easy-to-read entertaining book delivering powerful, useful counsel. Entrepreneurs with experience learn starting a new venture really is the easy part– from business idea, business plan, resources, and launch- these skills can be learned. A recent search on Amazon showed 9,003 "start your own business" or "SYOB" books and many are excellent. And they cover skills the author calls Entrepreneurial Management 1.0. But SBA statistics show half of all these new ventures fail within five years- the challenge is not starting a new business but growth and survival. So, with plenty of books out there, why kill trees for one more? The more relevant question is despite all these resources, why do half of all new ventures fail to meet the critical five- year milestone? Today's challenges demand you know more. Entrepreneurial Management 1.0 skills are just not good enough to help you be a "Survivor" entrepreneur. Simply put, yesterday's skills do not meet today's entrepreneur's needs. Before committing resources to develop new ventures, Fortune 500 firms go further, look at strategic issues, identify alliance and global strategies, understand how new venture metrics impact overall return given 3 to 5,000 other products and services in their business. And these Fortune 500 techniques provide the foundation for what the author defines as Entrepreneurial Management 2.0, a new entrepreneurial management discipline drawing upon new venture 'best practices', Fortune 500 firm techniques for launching and managing new ventures, and the author's experience working with many early-stage public and private companies. Helping entrepreneurs gain new skills needed to meet today’s challenges, reach the critical five-year milestone, and create more "Survivor" rather than "Maybe Next Time" entrepreneurs, is why the author wrote this book. Entrepreneurial Management 2.0 includes a portfolio of new entrepreneurial management skills organized into the eight "Building Blocks" which are defined and explained with examples in the new book. The Second Edition includes edits to improve readability and several new sections. The Digital Marketing arena is moving quickly, impacting today’s traditional sales and marketing processes. The Second Edition includes a new section on Digital Marketing, reviewing tools, methodologies, and impact for entrepreneurs. Regulatory guidelines for securing capital have changed significantly since the First Edition release in 2015. The regulatory section has been revised and updated with updates on the JOBS Act related regulations and a new section addressing the SEC's 'Regulation Crowdfunding' initiative offering entrepreneurs new alternatives to secure financing.