The Smart Entrepreneur: How to Build For a Successful Business
By: Bart Clarysse, Sabrina Kiefer
The ideal companion for anyone starting out on a new venture.
Successful entrepreneurs are smart. They take small steps, use their judgement astutely and reassess their assumptions at every opportunity. In today s fast-moving and technology-driven business environment, they collect the tools and the knowledge they need to manage uncertainty and stay ahead of the competition. Above all they strive to understand their market and business environment – as a result, they may even end up selling a different but commercially smarter idea than the one they first started with. But how does the aspiring entrepreneur get to this point?
Imperial College Business School is ranked number one throughout Europe for its teaching on entrepreneurship. Here entrepreneur and professor Bart Clarysse and venture coach Sabrina Kiefer set out their hands-on approach to coaching novice entrepreneurs in this comprehensive guide, distilling academic wisdom into practical principles.
The Smart Entrepreneur features real-life case studies as well as in-depth analysis by authors with direct experience of developing start-ups and venture coaching. Divided into twelve chapters that can also be read separately as mini-manuals, each section offers practical advice and guidance to cover all aspects of your new venture, from building a smart business proposition to assembling a dynamic team, carrying out affordable yet effective market research and seeking investment.
Whether you’ve been nurturing an idea for some time but haven’t yet worked out how to launch it or you’re in the early stages of a venture and in need of detailed advice and coaching, it will guide you through your decision-making process and show you how to turn your initial idea into a comprehensive, credible and investable proposition.
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The Smart Entrepreneur is a welcome addition to the genre of business books. Full of detailed, practical guidance and real-life examples, it will be of benefit to anyone setting out into the world of entrepreneurial ‘venturing’.
- Anthony Clarke, CEO, Angel Capital Group -
A smart investment for smart entrepreneurs.
- Patrick Dunne, Group Communications Director, 3i -
A must read for any entrepreneur with an aspiration for great success. This book offers practical guidance that allows ideas and innovation to flourish while applying the discipline required to develop your business.
- Nigel Grierson, Managing Director, Doughty Hanson & Co. Technology Ventures -
From time to time, but not very often, a book comes along which really does meet a serious need and addresses key issues from an experiential and not a theoretical standpoint. ‘The Smart Entrepreneur’ is such a book… Any coaches or course leaders looking for the easy way to acquire a practical course guide – jargon free and adaptable to full or part time entrepreneurial education – here it is. One of the best books on entrepreneurship available.
- Professor Alan Barrell, Judge Business School, Cambridge University