Marvin Lee Dot Net

You cannot really get any better advice on the world of technopreneur than a technology entrepreneur himself who has been there and done that.

The Tech Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide is a guide on how to boostrap your starup, lead it through tough times and making an exit (selling it) for a good price.

The author, Bernd Schoner is a graduate of the MIT Media Laboratory who cofounded ThingMagic, a tech startup focused on RFID. Ten years later the business was bought by Trimble Navigation, a multimillion dollar public technology company where he now serves as VP of Business Development. Over his ten years at ThingMagic Bernd learned all of the business lessons they don’t teach in engineering school.

In The Tech Entrepreneur’s Survival Guide, Bernd shares what he learned and what he wished he knew at the time. He explains the major phases in a technology company’s life cycle, helping entrepreneurs avoid common pitfalls and survive crises when they strike. He guides readers from the initial bootstrapping process through venture-capital financing and provides valuable advice on how to sell a technology company profitably–even in a challenging economic environment. Every chapter presents solutions to realworld issues that could otherwise have fatal consequences for a tech venture.

The chapters are organized into three major parts; Bootstrapping, Equity Funding and Exit.
Bootstrapping chapter provide readers some insights into starting a startup, if one is into entrepreneurship. Even with an interest or passion, a startup need important assets or resources, namely cofounders and key staff to bring about success for a startup. Early funding covers multiple options for a startup to obtain funds for further growth. The chapter also talks about getting legal resources to defend a startup as well as being an administrator of the organization.

Part 2 covers a lot of details into the option of further funding the tech company with shares and the hurdles in maintaining an equity based organization. Sound and valuable advices are given here as details are based on experience of ThingMagic in getting fundings.

The final part of the book has advices in helping entrepreneur with a startup exit, to get the best deal with the acquiring organization while maintaining the company’s operation without drastic changes having integrated into a larger organization. The best part of this chapter is its guide towards the right time for an exit.

Part 1
BOOTSTRAPPING
Should I or Should I not Venture Into Entrepreneurship?
Startup Assets
Cofounders
Early Funding
Administration
Compensation

Part 2
EQUITY FUNDING
Venture Deals
Raising a Down-Round
Right-Sizing

Part 3
EXIT
Startup Dynamics in Crisis
Exit Strategies
Corporate Life

Conclusion
If you are a budding technopreneur, or even contemplating to be one, this is one book you should not really miss.
Even better if your startup is in the US, as the examples in this book are primarily for US startups but I would say that any technology startup founders should be able to benefit from the content in this book.
There are many books that I would recommend, but only selected few has extremely high value.
This is one of them.

Books, business, Software, Technology Bernd Schoner, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship

I was recently inspired by a blog reader, JoV who had a niche blog, doing book reviews. She reads averaging more than five books a month!

Reading is a good habit, and the most I did was one book a month. Shameless, I know.
So, I am now determined to finish at least one a month and put up a review of it every month.

Here’s my personal take on Secrets Of Building Multi-Million Dollar Businesses by Adam Khoo.

The author Adam Khoo is a Singaporean, who runs motivational camps or training courses for corporates as well as students. A self-made millionaire by the age of 26, he is one of the youngest millionaires in Singapore. Read his biography here.

The book Secrets Of Building Multi-Million Dollar Businesses is his eighth of nine best selling books he authored.

This book has nine chapters and although I would categorize it as a business book, every chapter is written in a easy to read manner and with examples of how the topic relates to himself and the businesses he built.

Chapter 1 – The Making of a Millionaire Entrepreneur introduced how he learned business from young. He came from a wealthy family but he had to depend on himself to build his own wealth, which reminds me of Rich Dad Poor Dad. This chapter stressed that to be a successful entrepreneur, one needs to have a compelling WHY to have a business and the HOW will eventually find a way.

Chapter 2 – The Success Factors of Millionaire Entrepreneurs talks about having the entrepreneur skill sets. Adam shares about taking responsibility and facing challenges and used some of his clients as examples. Failures are important and innovation is needed for the survival of a business.

Chapter 3 – The Million Dollar Business Idea invites readers to think about their passion and that it is with love of the work that successful entrepreneurs do not stop working.

Chapter 4 – Building a Business That Works Without You guides you on the importance of letting the business run independently without the need of the owner running it. A good example of this is the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc. Adam uses McDonald’s as example in his book quite frequently as it is one of the most successful international business.

Chapter 5 – Multiplying Your Business Profits teaches the readers about Sales, Leads, Conversion Rates, Average Dollar Purchase and the likes. All of these are illustrated in a easy to understand manner even a programmer like me can easily catch the concept. 🙂

Chapter 6 – How To Generate Millions in Sales & Profit talks about marketing strategies and how to retain customers. The biggest mistake that most small businesses make is to focus all their attention on getting new customers and take it for granted that their old customers will return. How true!

Chapter 7 – Building a Championship Team shares about the pain of getting good people into a business and the four essential roles that are required in any business. Eventually, the idea is to get good people to join your business as a company is successful only because the people working in it are successful people.

Chapter 8 – Mastering Your Money reveals that most people does not care about their cashflow and how important it is to have good money management. This chapter guides on a six-month budgeting and forecasting in order to build a successful business.

Chapter 9 – Growing Your Business Empire basically talks about the need to grow your business once it has made profit and to stay relevant in the industry instead of losing out to the competition.

Personally, I would think this is a value-for-money type of business book as compared to the other famous authors talking about their money making adventures. This is because besides having it written in a simple to understand manner, Adam also provides a honest and frank story-telling guide on how to build a successful business and maintaining it, using himself as an example.

After finishing his book, it appears that he is a man of his own words, providing value to keep customers returning. I think I will get another book of his soon enough.

You can download the Chapter 1 for free from Adam Khoo’s website by providing your email in exchange for the download link here.

It’s also available for sale in Singapore and Malaysia, and can also be purchased online from MPH Online.
Or you can have a book exchange with me. 🙂

So that’s my first book review in this blog and I hope you like it.
Let me know if you have read this book before and your opinion on it below this blog posts.

I’m quite sure my once a month book review will work, the worst is to get a thin book and finish it in a day. And just in case you thought this is one, no.. it had 290 pages and I’m not a speed reader.

Books, Review Adam Khoo, business, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, millionaire