From the stories of entrepreneurs who have built some of the world's great companies (such as the world's largest medical device company and the world's largest consumer electronics retailer), Bootstrap to Billions shows entrepreneurs how they too can control and build a huge business from scratch to create wealth and keep it.

Is it possible for entrepreneurs to succeed at growing ventures without early-stage venture capital? Based on the fact that more than 9 out of 10 of America’s billion-dollar entrepreneurs did take off without early-stage VC, Dileep Rao says YES! In Nothing Ventured, Everything Gained, Dileep Rao shatters the dominant myth that entrepreneurs need early-stage venture capital to build a giant business. In fact, says Rao, by avoiding or even delaying VC, billion-dollar entrepreneurs can control their companies and the wealth created by them—and retain more of that wealth. The book is based on 30 of Rao’s interviews with billion-dollar entrepreneurs (BDEs) and hundred-million-dollar entrepreneurs (HMDEs) and the analysis of the strategies of 85 BDEs. The author introduces the finance-smart skills, opportunity secrets, and strategy secrets of BDEs who took off without VC, and proves his points via stories of successful giants like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs. Every entrepreneur will do well to read and benefit from Rao’s invaluable insights and expertise. ​Dileep Rao, PhD, financed the growth of hundreds of businesses and real estate projects over the twenty-three years he was VP of financing and business development at a venture development and finance institution. He advises entrepreneurs, governments, Fortune 1000 corporations, and financial institutions on building big businesses with finance-smart strategies. Dr. Rao is a clinical professor of entrepreneurship at Florida International University and has taught at Stanford University, the University of Minnesota, and in executive MBA programs in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Take Control of Your Business—and Watch it Grow How can entrepreneurs learn from those that came before, so they can better craft their own approach to success? Award-winning professor of entrepreneurship, Dileep Rao, presents readers with a detailed guide to success through his interviews and analysis of billionaire and millionaire entrepreneurs. While starting a business without outside help seems difficult—even impossible—Rao shows you that it can be done. And the right type of funding could even lead to a more successful business. Rao shares how more than 90 percent of America’s billion-dollar entrepreneurs avoided or delayed venture capital, and instead used smart strategies on business, capital, and leadership. It takes more than one person to grow a business from the bottom up. But that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice control in the process. Armed with twenty-three years of experience as a financier, Rao shows readers how to optimize internal financing to attract external financing, to keep control of the venture—and more of the wealth.

An inspiring, rags-to-riches guide to achieving success in life and business by the founder of Myprotein®. How did a working-class 23-year-old, who left school with almost no qualifications, launch a business with just a £500 overdraft and turn it into more than £350 million? In Bootstrap Your Life, Oliver Cookson shares how he was able to build Europe's number one online brand using nothing more than his own limited resources and the right mindset. Self-sufficient and self-taught, Oliver always had an eye for opportunities and pursued them obsessively. His breakthrough came when he combined his passion for health and fitness with his skills as a web developer. By embracing a disruptive, agile approach to business, offering unparalleled choice, and identifying trends ahead of the competition, Oliver was able to grow Myprotein® rapidly into a top international, award-winning brand. In Bootstrap Your Life, Oliver doesn't just share his journey but uses simple language to break down every aspect of his thinking, providing a thorough step-by-step guide on how to think like an entrepreneur. His approach to marketing, innovation, strategy, leadership and other key elements are explained in great detail using memorable analogies that anyone can relate to. Oliver explains how bootstrapping his life catapulted him from an ordinary life in the suburbs of Greater Manchester to being included in the Sunday Times Rich List with a personal net worth of over a third of a billion pounds. His message is clear: bootstrap your life!

Not all startups have the luxury of getting investors right off the bat–sometimes it takes bootstrapping a business by funding it out of your own pocket. While this is an honorable way to start a company, bootstrapping is more difficult than it might seem. First-time entrepreneurs often have trouble getting funding without first showing some traction and a plan for potential success. Bootstrapping a business is a lesson in hard work and flexibility, but ultimately it can help accelerate a company’s success. From our experience, here’s The Definitive Guide on How to Bootstrap Your Startup.

Bootstrapped to Millions is the story of how one entrepreneur built a software business to millions of dollars in annual profit without any investors or employees.Many think that a start-up needs to raise millions of dollars from investors to create a big and successful business. Or that a business owner needs to hire employees as fast as they can. That's just simply not true.In Bootstrapped to Millions, you'll explore numerous ways to build a business that continues to grow year after year without needing to hire employees or pour your hard-earned profit back into the business.Starting a business today has never been easier, but it takes focus, determination, and a clear vision to create a successful business. This book won't do the work for you, but you can learn how to set your business up for long-term success and maximize your earnings.

This book is about you! It's about giving you the motivation and the guidance you need to start your own business without having to raise millions in venture capital. It's about giving you the confidence that you can succeed with your ideas by showing you how others, just like you, did it. It's about showing you what business models have been proven successful by bootstrapping and to help you identify how to find your own ideas for a business. I have researched thousands of startups. I'm intrigued to learn how they did it and more importantly, how more people like you can follow in their success. Bootstrapped shares the stories of a carefully selected 75 startups and entrepreneurs from a variety of industries and backgrounds. While we often read about the Facebook's and Google's of the world, the vast majority (i.e. the 99] %) of startups never raise any venture capital and yet they find ways to become profitable and succeed all the while getting to maintain complete control of their companies. Bootstrapped uncovers these hidden stories to show you that it's all possible. The media and to an extent, our society, provide a false perception that in order to successfully start a business, you need to raise a lot of money. While this may be true for a small percentage of companies (i.e., the 1%) that require millions in startup capital to grow to $Billion companies, it is untrue for more than 99% of successful startups. In Bootstrapped, you will learn not only how these savvy entrepreneurs bootstrapped their businesses, but you'll also learn how they came up with their ideas, the steps they took to transform their ideas into a business, and how they ultimately built and scaled their businesses to success. Let's face it, most of us want to start our own business, but we often don't know where to start. In fact, just getting started is the BIGGEST reason why most of us never do it. And there are 2 false ideas that we give ourselves that are the cause of our inability to START something great: 1.) I don't have a good idea 2.) I don't have enough money Bootstrapped will show you that finding a "good" business idea is a lot easier than you think AND that you often don't need a lot (if any) money to get started with your idea. Bootstrapped isn't about selling you a pipe dream. It's about showing you real life stories of how real life entrepreneurs did it, and more importantly, they show you how you can do it too.

This tells the story of Douglas Engelbart's revolutionary vision, reaching beyond conventional histories of Silicon Valley to probe the ideology that shaped some of the basic ingredients of contemporary life.

Take Control of Your Startup―and Watch it Grow “This book delivers clear thinking for entrepreneurs who want to control their own destiny and grow their business without the need for venture capital.” -Joel Cannon, co-founder and president of Cannon Technologies An analysis of success. Award-winning professor of entrepreneurship Dileep Rao presents readers with a detailed guide to success through his interviews and analysis of billion-dollar entrepreneurs (those who built a venture from startup to more than $1 billion in sales and valuation) and 100 million-dollar entrepreneurs (startup to $100 million). Build your business without venture capital (VC) funding. Rao is here to show entrepreneurs that it is possible to start a business without outside help. He shares how more than 90 percent of America’s billion-dollar entrepreneurs in the VC era (since 1946) avoided or delayed VC, and instead used finance-smart expertise―skills that combine business-smart, capital-smart, and leadership-smart strategies. The right mix of internal and external financing. It takes more than one person to grow a business from the bottom up. But that doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice control of the venture in the process. Armed with 23 years of experience as a financer, Rao shows readers how to optimize internal financing so as to attract external financing. By keeping control of the venture, entrepreneurs keep more of the wealth, as well. In Finance Secrets of Billion-Dollar Entrepreneurs learn about: • Pre-financing, financing and post-financing skills and strategies of finance-smart entrepreneurs • The ins and outs of venture finance, applicable to anyone looking to start a business • Tips on increasing capital productivity and attaining financially sustainable entrepreneurship If you’ve enjoyed entrepreneurship-focused titles like The Lean Startup, The $100 Startup, or Venture Deals, then Rao’s Finance Secrets of Billion-Dollar Entrepreneurs is the next book for you.