RUNNING & GROWING A BUSINESS QUICKSTART GUIDE

A soup-to-nuts manual focuses on all aspects of effectively managing a business.

Colwell prefaces his latest addition to the popular QuickStart Guide series by assuring his readers that he was no natural-born entrepreneur. “I’m a Gen-Xer,” he writes, “my dad was a corporate wage slave and I assumed I would be too.” But a series of posts as dean at various business schools broadened his experience and gave him a greater perspective on the changing nature of the startup world. “Gone are the days when you needed to raise millions of dollars and live in San Francisco or one of the other entrepreneurial hot spots,” he observes. In these pages, he takes his readers through the three main parts of his advice: “Getting Yourself Ready for Growth, Maneuvering for Growth, and Strategic Issues in Growing Your Business.” He warns them about disregarding pages. “You may be tempted to skip over the material in Part I to get to the more nuts-and-bolts stuff in Parts II and III,” he writes. “Resist that temptation.” In short, pithy chapters filled with quotes, sidebars, bulleted points, and Donnachie and Duquette’s useful illustrations, the author covers the whole range of what entrepreneurs need to make a success of their ventures, from the round-the-clock energy of launching the enterprise to the grit needed to continue expanding. He periodically weighs in with vivid business world examples as well as “My Take” reflections on it all. Colwell’s counsel is personable, vigorous, and direct, which helps to compensate for the familiar nature of some of the tips he relates in his manual. “Optimism doesn’t mean sitting back and believing everything will be fine,” he writes in one passage. “That’s not optimism; that’s denial.” “Accountability—or lack of it—has a powerful influence on company culture,” goes another passage. “You lead by example when you respond to mistakes.” Perhaps some skipping ahead is warranted after all.

An energetic but sometimes familiar guide to becoming an entrepreneurial success.