A deftly written, exceedingly thorough, and highly informative business guide.
An entrepreneur/investor delivers a solid approach to business ownership.
Early on in this impressive debut, Deibel sets up his enticing argument, advising that “the startup phase is a company killer” and proposing “a path that could bypass the startup phase altogether.” His concept, “acquisition entrepreneurship,” involves buying an existing business and growing it instead of starting from scratch. On the surface, this may not seem like much of a revelation, but the author, who has acquired seven companies, claims the idea “hasn’t penetrated the entrepreneurship community much beyond the elite universities.” For those entrepreneurs intrigued by the idea, this book is a top-notch, start-to-finish, comprehensive manual. Divided into four parts (Opportunity, Evaluation, Analysis, and Execution), this smart volume covers all the bases, offering a complete plan for exactly how to go about finding a company to buy, making an offer, purchasing the business, and transitioning ownership. Deibel uses his own experiences, supplemented by research and interviews, to present a substantive case for his entrepreneurial method. The guide is an excellent blend of strategy and how-to with liberal doses of both. For example, it explores the strategic potential of buying a company from baby boomers, who “are already selling off their established, successful small businesses at record rates.” On the tactical side, the work runs through the specifics of how to define a target company by identifying an “opportunity profile” and creating a “target statement.” In the section on analyzing a potential acquisition, the author’s strength as an investor shines through as he carefully walks readers through the basics of evaluating a business, analyzing financial statements, and valuing a company. This part of the book should help to demystify the business valuation process for many entrepreneurs. Of great benefit is a chapter that delves into the mindset of the seller. Here, the author provides several techniques for the buyer to engage in meaningful, nonthreatening conversations with the seller. There isn’t much lacking in this work; the manual wraps up with all the steps involved in executing a sale and closes with a useful three-month plan for ownership transition.
A deftly written, exceedingly thorough, and highly informative business guide.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0113-0
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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