An unusual, conversational, and valuable manual for prospective business owners.
A seasoned entrepreneur shares techniques and strategies for turning creative pursuits into successful businesses.
In this debut book, Sabino draws on both her own experience as the founder of jewelry brand Lucid New York and the works of well-known, pop-business writers (Seth Godin, Chris Guillebeau, and Tim Ferriss are name-checked frequently) to provide readers with a framework for developing a venture based on creative activities. The volume explores the psychology of creating—and the challenges that innovators often face when combining their passions with the pursuit of profit—and the elements of a thriving 21st-century business. Concise and cleanly written chapters tackle the decision to launch a creative career, growth management, pricing strategies, and marketing and publicity techniques. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for journaling or otherwise examining the topic more deeply. Although Sabino acknowledges that potential creative entrepreneurs may face financial or personal limits on their abilities to forge new careers, the readers who will find this guide most useful are those who have plenty of time (Sabino describes holding a full-time job for a year in addition to starting her business) and money (working for free “is a simple and effective way to start almost any career you dream of”). Some of the counsel will be familiar to readers of business books—tips on managing time effectively; understanding the psychology of pricing—while in other cases, Sabino brings a unique perspective, as in her recommendation against focusing too much on developing new products: “If we move on from what we’ve completed way too soon, we deprive clients from knowing about it and owning it.” The manual is also notable for its applicability to a wide range of entrepreneurial styles and strategies: Sabino addresses readers who are initiating lifestyle businesses as well as those chasing venture capital and IPOs, and both groups should find the book helpful. While readers will have to look elsewhere for advice on the more nitty-gritty details of running a business, they will find worthwhile information on a mindful approach to creative entrepreneurship here.
An unusual, conversational, and valuable manual for prospective business owners.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63265-111-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Career Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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