WINNERS: The Successful Strategies Entrepreneurs Use to Build New Businesses

Unlike The Entrepreneurial Female (p. 789), this breezy, upbeat, gender-neutral survey of proprietorship's rewards and risks won't put unwary readers in harm's way. Nor, however, will it give the enterprising a very clear picture of what's involved in getting and keeping a fledgling firm off the ground. At the outset, Henderson lists ""eight steps to riches,"" i.e., requisites for turning a new-product or service idea into a lucrative commercial venture. His agenda features such make-ready procedures as drafting a credible business plan, marshalling the resources (financial or otherwise) required to execute it, and actually setting up shop. Thereafter, he addresses operational exigencies--responding appropriately to adversity, planning for expansion, cashing in once the big time has been reached, etc. To make his points, Henderson relies mainly on case studies of varying length and value, scanting nuts-and-bolts detail. To illustrate, he offers twice-told tales on main-chance exemplars, including the well-known likes of Ed Lowe (of Kitty Litter fame), Xavier Roberts (father of the Cabbage Patch Kids), Fred Smith (Federal Express), and Bill Magowan (the rough, tough guiding light at MCI). There also are engaging accounts of lesser lights, notably, the Texas divorc‚e who spotted a market opportunity and launched Flash Cubes to supply restaurants with ice on an emergency basis, plus cautionary briefings on the penalties of poor preparation or other miscalculations, e.g., meager returns on capital for investors in ""Class Struggle""--a dead-in-the-water board game created by a Marxist professor at NYU. As a practical matter, Henderson's narrative talents far outstrip his inclination--or, perhaps, ability--to explore the ins and outs of entrepreneurship. Good fun, but--as a source of information--more paean than primer.