From Acorns
2nd edition
UK Edition
By Caspian Woods
September 2007
Prentice Hall / Financial Times
Distributed
By Trans-Atlantic Publications
ISBN: 9780273712527
232 Pages, Illustrations, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4"
$33.50 Paper Original
Thinking of starting a business? Chances are you will be excited by your
ideas, but daunted by what might lie ahead. Most start-up guides make that
feeling worse, by overloading you with complex, yet missing out the essentials
that you really need to focus on to succeed.
From Acorns is a different kind of book. Free from jargon and
full of practical tips from countless entrepreneurs, it’s the only
guide that tells you exactly what you need to know – no frills, no
complications.
In its second edition, this bestselling book now includes information not
only for small start-ups, but for those with ambitious growth plans who need
to plan big financial pitches, initiate and nurture large scale expansions,
and, eventually, sell and move on to the next venture.
From Acorns is the no nonsense guide to starting a business – whether
your plans or modest or on a grand scale, this book helps you get it right
first time around.
Contents
Do you really want to be an entrepreneur?
If you think it would be nice to be successful…you won’t be
Never apologise for being passionate
Don’t tell your family about your dreams
Skills: How to make yourself an entrepreneur:
Be greedy and lazy
Why good entrepreneurs are sociopaths
Need to become a better decision maker – like Noah
Your business idea:
Where there’s mystery – there’s margin
Dominate a niche
Be a barnacle on a whale.
The customer is rarely right
Why companies sabotage their products
Raising finance
Finance your start-up with credit cards
Dragon’s Den
Sales
How to make cold calling less painful.
How to win at pitches.
Marketing:
The importance of being different.
The Wizard of Oz approach to marketing
It’s only worth advertising if you do it on your forehead
Creating word of mouth
Staff/Talent:
Keep the loonies locked in the asylum
Sales people are baboons
Getting a Mentor:
Ask the bride to dance
Entrepreneurial management
New section
Accounts:
How to minimize your tax liability.
Medicine for your mojo:
Don’t be good, be brilliant
Seeking revenge:
Don’t believe your own press:
Only when the tide goes out that you can see who’s been swimming without
any pants on
Buying and selling a business
New section
Never take a minority stake in a small unquoted business
Sacrifice the sacred cow
Appendix:
An action plan to complete
Caspian Woods has run businesses since his teens when he set-up the first UK yearbook publishing company and ran an events company called Let me hold your Balls for you. He has won a number of entrepreneurial awards including Young Scot of the Year, Young Achievers of Britain at Buckingham Palace, Shell Livewire, and Ernst and Young Trailblazers. He was recently appointed by Prince Charles as an ambassador for his youth business trust. Caspian currently runs a publishing agency producing magazines on small business for the likes of Scottish Enterprise, Clydesdale Bank, Bank of Scotland. He has written very popular small business columns for papers such as the Herald and Business am.
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