A useful manual aimed at socially conscious entrepreneurs.
An introspective look at building a startup with long-range vision.
Entrepreneur Abouelnaga’s perspective on startups has the implicit message that if you do what you love as a career, you’ll not only become wealthy, but also “improve the world.” His latest book looks with fresh eyes at how an entrepreneur’s mindset can help or hinder a startup, and it examines the difference between passion, which initiates a goal, and purpose, which, for him, entails a sense of moral obligation. Abouelnaga, a former Forbes columnist, writes in a pleasant, no-nonsense style, taking readers through his comprehensive, easy-to-follow program built around six key, introspective questions. The answers are sure to help readers assess whether their vision is tenable and whether deeper examination,or a course change, is needed before jumping in. Early chapters focus on each question individually: “Why is this important?” “Why is this important to me?” “Why am I the right person to be doing this?” and so on. The author significantly delves into what he calls the overriding element: Does the venture have enough scope and significance to pass a “requiring help test”? In practice, this means that one must determine whether one’s idea will have a broad impact on society. Abouelnaga goes on to helpfully note that his own purpose in forming his organization, Practice Makes Perfect, was to help disadvantaged students. But he realized that in order to meet his big-picture goal—creating a more equitable society—he would need the support of other people. The book builds upon its own ideas, and it’s best read as a whole, but the chapters are so neatly focused and streamlined that each manages to stand well on its own. No matter what way one chooses to digest the information, it will certainly be of value to businesspeople at all levels of experience.
A useful manual aimed at socially conscious entrepreneurs.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-948080-69-9
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Indigo River Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.
Prolific writer Benedict has long blended two interests—sports and business—and the Patriots are emblematic of both. Founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots, the team built a strategic home field between that city and Providence. When original owner Billy Sullivan sold the flailing team in 1988, it was $126 million in the hole, a condition so dire that “Sullivan had to beg the NFL to release emergency funds so he could pay his players.” Victor Kiam, the razor magnate, bought the long since renamed New England Patriots, but rival Robert Kraft bought first the parking lots and then the stadium—and “it rankled Kiam that he bore all the risk as the owner of the team but virtually all of the revenue that the team generated went to Kraft.” Check and mate. Kraft finally took over the team in 1994. Kraft inherited coach Bill Parcells, who in turn brought in star quarterback Drew Bledsoe, “the Patriots’ most prized player.” However, as the book’s nimbly constructed opening recounts, in 2001, Bledsoe got smeared in a hit “so violent that players along the Patriots sideline compared the sound of the collision to a car crash.” After that, it was backup Tom Brady’s team. Gridiron nerds will debate whether Brady is the greatest QB and Bill Belichick the greatest coach the game has ever known, but certainly they’ve had their share of controversy. The infamous “Deflategate” incident of 2015 takes up plenty of space in the late pages of the narrative, and depending on how you read between the lines, Brady was either an accomplice or an unwitting beneficiary. Still, as the author writes, by that point Brady “had started in 223 straight regular-season games,” an enviable record on a team that itself has racked up impressive stats.
Smart, engaging sportswriting—good reading for organization builders as well as Pats fans.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982134-10-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
A vigorous and highly readable plan for building the finances of a new business.
A program of cash-management techniques for aspiring entrepreneurs, aimed at a minority readership.
At the beginning of this business book, Mariga reflects on the birth of her daughter, Florence, and on the depressing prospect of returning to her corporate job and missing some of her baby’s early moments. She realized that she “wanted to show Florence…that I could, that she could, that anyone could be anything they wanted to be in this world.” To that end, she wanted to start her own business, and she “wanted to help entrepreneurs build successful businesses that provide opportunities for others.” In a sentiment reflected by others she’s interviewed, she says that she wanted to strengthen her family legacy, so she founded her own accounting firm. She paints a vivid picture of the hardscrabble early days of other minority business owners like herself, the child of an African American mother and a Chinese father who also had a family accounting business. She and others were “all hustling to acquire clients and build our businesses…and most of us had absolutely nothing to show for it.” She was inspired by Mike Michalowicz’s Profit First money management system, and the bulk of her book is devoted to an explanation of how to make this system work for minority business enterprises. (Michalowicz provides a foreword to the book.) One of the primary goals of Profit First is to build “a self-sustaining, debt-free company,” so a large part of Mariga’s work deals with the details of managing finances, building and abiding by budgets, and handling the swings of emotion that occur every step of the way. As sharply focused as these insights are, the author’s recollections of her own experiences are more rewarding, as when she tells readers of her brief time as a cut-rate accountant and learning that it was a mistake to try to compete on price. These stories, as well as financing specifics and clear encouragements (“Small changes and adjustments accumulate. Over time, they will lead you to your goal”), will make this book invaluable to entrepreneurs of all kinds.
A vigorous and highly readable plan for building the finances of a new business.Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7357759-0-6
Page Count: 230
Publisher: The Avant-Garde Project, LLC
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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