An engaging, nuts-and-bolts breakdown of the financial side of entrepreneurship.
A detailed guide to disentangling three key elements of business.
In his latest, business consultant Duryee (Lead To Succeed, 2005, etc.) describes a familiar triangle: business owners, who believe that if their revenue and profits are healthy, banks should be willing to lend them money; bankers, who worry that business owners “may not understand the difference between profits and cash flow, and therefore will overly rely on debt to support growth”; and luckless certified public accountants caught in the middle, trying to get both sides to speak the same “language.” In this book, Duryee promises to resolve this age-old problem, providing prospective business owners with clear and easy-to-follow explanations of financial statements and how to apply them to business models, how to understand cash flow (which isn’t the same as profits, he points out), and how to develop forecast models for financial statements. He writes with clarity and authority even when he’s deep in the weeds of financial arcana: “Always use straight-line depreciation on your internally produced financial statements because accelerated depreciation artificially lowers both the value of your assets and your profit.” He correctly notes that many entrepreneurs start their businesses with passion and vision but precious little financial acumen. Overall, this book takes key concepts—everything from liquidity to accounts receivable—and skillfully renders their essentials. Although he may overestimate how quickly novices will be able to master such information, he makes it all immensely relatable by linking his ideas to lessons he’s learned in his own career as a consultant. Along the way, he offers case studies, bullet-pointed lists, and graphs to make sure that nothing is left to chance. Newcomers to the business world will consider this book a godsend, but even old hands will likely learn something from it.
An engaging, nuts-and-bolts breakdown of the financial side of entrepreneurship.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-946978-17-2
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Best Seller Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The memoir of George Dawson, who learned to read when he was 98, places his life in the context of the entire 20th century in this inspiring, yet ultimately blighted, biography. Dawson begins his story with an emotional bang: his account of witnessing the lynching of a young African-American man falsely accused of rape. America’s racial caste system and his illiteracy emerge as the two biggest obstacles in Dawson’s life, but a full view of the man overcoming the obstacles remains oddly hidden. Travels to Ohio, Canada, and Mexico reveal little beyond Dawson’s restlessness, since nothing much happens to him during these wanderings. Similarly, the diverse activities he finds himself engaging in—bootlegging in St. Louis, breaking horses, attending cockfights—never really advance the reader’s understanding of the man. He calls himself a “ladies’ man” and hints at a score of exciting stories, but then describes only his decorous marriage. Despite the personal nature of this memoir, Dawson remains a strangely aloof figure, never quite inviting the reader to enter his world. In contrast to Dawson’s diffidence, however, Glaubman’s overbearing presence, as he repeatedly parades himself out to converse with Dawson, stifles any momentum the memoir might develop. Almost every chapter begins with Glaubman presenting Dawson with a newspaper clipping or historical fact and asking him to comment on it, despite the fact that Dawson often does not remember or never knew about the event in question. Exasperated readers may wonder whether Dawson’s life and his accomplishments, his passion for learning despite daunting obstacles, is the tale at hand, or whether the real issue is his recollections of Archduke Ferdinand. Dawson’s achievements are impressive and potentially exalting, but the gee-whiz nature of the tale degrades it to the status of yet another bowl of chicken soup for the soul, with a narrative frame as clunky as an old bone.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50396-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.
An Ohio-based poet, columnist, and music critic takes the pulse of the nation while absorbing some of today’s most eclectic beats.
At first glance, discovering deep meaning in the performance of top-40 songstress Carly Rae Jepsen might seem like a tough assignment. However, Abdurraqib (The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, 2016) does more than just manage it; he dives in fully, uncovering aspects of love and adoration that are as illuminating and earnest as they are powerful and profound. If he can do that with Jepsen's pop, imagine what the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Prince, or Nina Simone might stir in him. But as iconic as those artists may be, the subjects found in these essays often serve to invoke deeper forays into the worlds surrounding the artists as much as the artists themselves. Although the author is interested in the success and appeal of The Weeknd or Chance the Rapper, he is also equally—if not more—intrigued with the sociopolitical and existential issues that they each managed to evoke in present-day America. In witnessing Zoe Saldana’s 2016 portrayal of Simone, for instance, Abdurraqib thinks back to his own childhood playing on the floor of his family home absorbing the powerful emotions caused by his mother’s 1964 recording of “Nina Simone in Concert”—and remembering the relentlessly stigmatized soul who, unlike Saldana, could not wash off her blackness at the end of the day. In listening to Springsteen, the author is reminded of the death of Michael Brown and how “the idea of hard, beautiful, romantic work is a dream sold a lot easier by someone who currently knows where their next meal is coming from.” In all of Abdurraqib’s poetic essays, there is the artist, the work, the nation, and himself. The author effortlessly navigates among these many points before ultimately arriving at conclusions that are sometimes hopeful, often sorrowful, and always visceral.
Erudite writing from an author struggling to find meaning through music.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-937512-65-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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