Truth About Starting a Business, The - Softcover

Bruce R. Barringer, a renowned expert on entrepreneurship, is a professor of management at the University of Central Florida. His books include Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures, 2nd Edition, Preparing Effective Business Plans: An Entrepreneurial Approach, and What's Stopping You?: Shatter the 9 Most Common Myths Keeping You from Starting Your Own Business.

Preface

Think quickly. Should you buy this book? You have to make a decision. Every minute of every day, you are making a series of small decisions that could change the course of your career and your life. Our lives are the sum of our decisions. Your success is largely a result of the quality of your decisions. Have you given any thought to how you make decisions?

This book won’t keep you from making stupid decisions. Alas, it won’t offer you a life without regret or buyer’s remorse. It will help you step back from the heat of decision making and think about how you approach decision making. I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the leading researchers in the field of decision making, including Paul Schoemaker, author of Decision Traps and Winning Decisions, Howard Kunreuther, co-director of the Wharton School’s Risk and Decision Processes Center, and Jerry Wind and Colin Crook, authors of The Power of Impossible Thinking. I have learned a great deal from them about making decisions.

I wish I could say that all this good schooling has kept me from making absolutely disastrous decisions, but I’d be lying. I’ve walked away from a stable job to start a business (turned out to be a pretty good decision). I’ve moved 2,000 miles from Pennsylvania to Colorado with a St. Bernard and three kids and back again in one year (a disaster but a fascinating adventure as well). It is a decision I’d make again in a heartbeat because it was for the sake of family. So the little knowledge I have hasn’t kept my tail out of the fire. But the way I think about and approach decisions has changed.

There is no simple formula for decisions, but we can become better at making them. No decision is perfect, but often doing nothing is worse. The time to act is now. On the following pages are a series of sharp insights that will give you new ways of thinking about your decisions. There are no shortcuts or machines to make decisions for you. You just need to dig in, open your eyes and get to work. I hope the following truths about decision making can help you in making your own tough decisions.

But some decisions are not all that tough. I mean, buy the book already.

—Robert Gunther

Praise for The Truth About Starting a Business

“When thinking about starting a business, have you ever felt discouraged because you did not know somebody or some thing? If that is the case, Barringer can be your wise uncle. In this insightful new book, he shares common-sense advice, based on research that can help to get you started and going in the right direction to launch your own venture.”

James Fiet, Ph.D., Brown Forman Chair in Entrepreneurship, University of Louisville

“Relevant and easily accessible advice on how to start your own business. Barringer’s great primer covers it all, from naming your company to handling legalities, from publicity to the psychology of being an entrepreneur.”

Matt Hedges, Founder and President, Vino de Sol

“This book is a must read! Barringer has developed an easy-to-follow blueprint on how to start a new business. He takes the complexity of entrepreneurship and streamlines it, providing insight and expertise that is invaluable to those venturing out on their own.”

Christopher Jones, CAGS, Licensed Educational Psychologies, NCSP, President & CEO,
Dynamic Interventions, Inc.

“I found myself smiling as I read some of the truths because I found it talking about myself and peers who have started numerous companies. This book should be on the seasoned entrepreneur’s list of ‘what I should have read before I started my business.’”

Joe Keeley, President & CEO, College Nannies & Tutors Development

“This book is the ultimate handbook for starting a business: from coming up with an idea to implementing it with success and vigor. It walks a potential business owner through the steps of writing a business plan, creating an identity, financing a business, hiring personnel, marketing, and creating a work-life balance. It is a tool that no new business owner should be without.”

Dr. Emily Levy, Founder & CEO, EBL Coaching

“Barringer cuts to the chase with his simple, relevant, and hard-hitting truths. In practical language and with significant insight about the realities of venture start-up, he speaks on very personal level to the prospective entrepreneur.”

Michael H. Morris, PhD, Chris J. Witting Chair and Professor, Whitman School of Management,
Syracuse University

“This is one of the best entrepreneurship books I’ve read. If you’re an entrepreneur or are thinking about starting a business, this book is a must read! I wish I had this book when I first started out.”

Ryan O’Donnell, Co-Founder and CEO, BullEx Digital Safety

“Barringer reveals many realities about being an entrepreneur and starting a business. Beyond just loving what you do, it is obviously critical to understand as many of the components that go into running your business as possible.”

Evan Shapiro, Co-Founder, Blue Maze Entertainment

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