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| The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship | 
 enlarge | Creators: William D. Bygrave, Andrew Zacharakis
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $34.95
Buy New: $18.95
You Save: $16.00 (46%)
Buy New/Used from $17.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  (13 reviews)
Sales Rank: 108069
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 3rd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 500
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.4
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 7.2 x 1.7
ISBN: 0471271543
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.022
EAN: 9780471271543
ASIN: 0471271543
Publication Date: March 14, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This new and updated third edition equips real-world entrepreneurs with the same state-of-the-art business knowledge and information taught to MBA candidates in top business schools. Within this book you?ll find all the entrepreneurial advice you need to run a business: - Recognizing great entrepreneurial opportunities
- Writing a business plan and building your financial statements
- Securing financing with venture capital or debt financing
- Franchising your business
- Managing a growing business
- Protecting intellectual property
- Selling a business when the time comes
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Everything you should've done October 16, 2007
If you have been running a business for a while and are seeing successes/failures but you aren't sure why: Please buy this book and enjoy!
If you are just starting out on your expedition (because journey is way too overused), I recommend you get a SCORE (http://www.score.org) representative in your area to help you out for about a year, then pick up this book: It will say a lot of the same things, but in a different way. Which, I think, can never hurt.
My favorite section of this book is easily the cash flow projections. He made my brain hurt a little bit, but then I started to understand things I didn't know were out there.
All in all, this is a book I will keep in my library for as long as I own a business.
Good book, good MBA insight March 8, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
this was my first MBA or any business type book. it was a really good and easy read, and had a good mix of detailed and technical know how. Gave me some good insight into understanding the company that i was working for which was about a 30 employee company in Boston.
 More Like the Portable Associates Degree in Entrepreneurship July 17, 2006
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
The problem with this book is that it was written as a textbook with very little practal advice and no real "know-how" methods. Similar to virtually all business books written by professors for colleges, this book falls very short in equipping would-be entrepreneurs with the insight, skills, and know-how needed to become successful entrepreneurs. I would not waste your money on this book at any price.
If you want a great book on the topic, I highly recommend "The Startup Company Bible for Entrepreneurs". This little-known book is rapidly becoming THE STANDARD for entrepreneurs.
A good reference and overview of Entrepreneurship February 9, 2006
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
As an undergraduate, I studied political science; as a graduate student, I studied history (among other things) - however, few if any of my classes ever dealt with the actual mechanics of business, despite dealing with business in a more general sense (as it would fit in the context of history and politics). I decided that it was important to learn some of the basic concepts of business administration, and the Portable MBA series by John Wiley & Sons publishers fit the bill.
This book on entrepreneurship begins very directly - 'This is the entrepreneurial age,' author William Bygrave writes in the first chapter. Entrepreneurship is a revolutionary force driving economies on a global scale, often from very small beginnings. This book has gone through several editions; imagine the change in the world since the first edition in 1993, when the world wide web and this thing called the 'internet' was barely a blip on the business radar screen! This show the power of entrepreneurial spirit and activity.
Schumpeter once described an entrepreneur as 'the person who destroys the existing economic order by introducing new products and services, by creating new forms of organisation, or by exploiting new raw materials.' This can be done within existing businesses or by creating new ones - observe the number of transformations that have taken place with even major corporations revamping their product lines, means of production, or organisational/administrative structures. The factors that go into creating entrepreneurial enterprises are psychological, sociological, personal/creative, environmental, political - it is hard to isolate particular things as indispensable, but relatively easy to see those things which are helpful.
Entrepreneurs are like inventors in many ways - on the one hand, they must create something new, but on the other hand, must find ways to exploit it in a beneficial way. This includes financing, intellectual property / patent rights, business negotiations, possibly franchising and licensing for production and sales. These require an understanding of the business processes including marketing, accounting, finance, management, planning, and more. This book covers all these aspects. There is also a special section devoted to the internet (which is also addressed as appropriate in the other sections, too).
The authors who contributed to this volume have both academic and professional experience, and tend to do a good job at explaining things in terms that the non-professional can understanding. Anyone with a basic undergraduate background should find this volume accessible.
This is not a how-to book, but rather a good survey and reference for those who want to better understand the entrepreneurial phenomenon, which is an important force in the economy today.
Good reference January 23, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The Bad - Like all of the Portable MBA series, the book provides a limited and somewhat superficial coverage of the topic. It will not replace a good entreprenuerial course in an excellent MBA program.
The Good - Having been involved in four failed and one successful entrepreneurial ventures in the past 15 years, I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that there are many hidden gems in the book that will save you (potentially) years of wasted efforts and large sums of money. One example: if you are planning a business venture, and you cannot name specific companies, and specific individuals in specific companies, as part of your target market, then you have not performed due dilegence and are not ready to begin a business venture. Vague target markets such as "the public" or "somebody and some large telecomm company" are the sure road to failure.
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