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Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
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List Price:
$24.95
Homebizpc.com Price:
$24.45
Your Savings: $ 0.50 ( 2% )
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: S Curve Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780971187306
ISBN: 0971187304
Label: S Curve Press
Manufacturer: S Curve Press
Number Of Pages: 301
Publication Date: 2001-09-15
Publisher: S Curve Press
Studio: S Curve Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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Bootstrap serves as a useful reference for the prospective or newly established entrepreneur and offers valuable lessons for anyone interested in building a self-funded company, regardless of industry. Ken Hess lets the reader step into the shoes of the entrepreneur, and benefit from first hand experiences on what worked well and what failed. Written in narrative form, the book takes the reader through the evolution of a company, from one employee to one hundred, and highlights the fundamental business philosophies that enabled this entrepreneur to achieve success. The book covers topics applicable to any company, such as: how to hire the right employees, developing a functional organizational structure, creating a vision that translates into actionable objectives for every employee, managing the product portfolio, and understanding your customers needs and market trends to stay one step ahead of the competition.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Bootstrap for Entrepreneurship Educators
Comment: Bootstrap: Lessons Learned in Building a Successful Company from Scratch by Ken Hess, a graduate of Stanford University (BS Engineering) and a Harvard University (MBA), is one of the best books out there for teaching entrepreneurship to nascent technology and creative entrepreneurs. While the book is a few years old now, this is true even today, especially considering the current financial environment, which is showing signs of a down market for either angel capital or venture capital for most start-up companies. Depending on the depth and length of the downturn, boostrapping will become an even more important subject, and thus I feel its important for me as an entrepreneurship educator to learn more about this strategy and find out who has written about it. Fortunately, I've had Ken's book on my radar for the last five years. If anyone has other books they can recommend to me as well, please do let me know -- or let us know. But as of yet I haven't found a better one than Ken's for what I'm trying to accomplish in the classroom.
I have been teaching entrepreneurship to MSc, Ph.D. and UG4 students at the University of Edinburgh now through the Edinburgh-Stanford Link programme for 4 years now. I have always recommended the book for optional reading, and for my second semester course for digital design MScs called "The Digital Marketplace", I have made the book required. In fact, I even invited Ken over to guest speak in my course! Fortunately he accepted :-). Because of the nature of these (student) ventures and the fact that most if not all will need to be bootstrapped, I feel it important to give the students a well rounded view, and a thorough case of how someone has done it. The book is also human and entertaining as well, which makes it not only a bit more fun but a bit more real too.
Ken combines real world experience with sound logic in presenting a story and a how-to in his book. I would highly recommend it to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship educators as well. I especially and fond of the chapter on Strategy and Marketing. His explanation of equity and growth is especially valuable and needs to be considered. However, the sections on human resources such as hiring and firing and organization structure are good as well. Its a great book for first-time and nascent entrepreneurs as most of my students are, for it gives a good overview of the various components of a business.
-Michael Clouser, Edinburgh-Stanford Link, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Story
Comment: Hess writes a wonderful story about his experiences of starting, growing, and selling a successful software company. The narrative intertwines his family life into the never-ending responsibilities of entrepreneurialism. The book is full of "lessons learned", although don't expect this to be a step-by-step roadmap for bootstrapping a company. This book serves as a testament of what can be achieved through planning, motivation, leadership, and passion. If you are creative and desire control and freedom, then this book will get you excited.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Interesting
Comment: The book won't help you at all if you are looking to open a company. It is a long an uninteresting story of this guy's life.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great inspirational story for anyone thinking of starting a company
Comment: The 10 year story of starting a company scratch with no outside money, and taking it to US$17/million annual revenue and 80 employees over the span of 10 years.
Lots of great advice for any owner-CEO, especially in the high-tech software field.
A page turner for anyone thinking of starting a high-tech software company (me), or working on high-tech marketing or product development.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lessons from real life.
Comment: A story that talks as much about the satisfactions, disappointments, and inter-personality issues (both people-wise and corporate-wise) involved in starting a business as it does about strategy, finance, product development, and marketing. I found it very enjoyable to read and essentially filled cover to cover with insights and lessons learned. I would highly recommended it. Read other books to learn the details of running a business; Read this one to expose yourself to one man's hard-earned wisdom.
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