With a focus on a diverse group of Latino entrepreneurs in the Houston area, Valdez explores how class, gender, race, and ethnicity shape Latino entrepreneurs' capacity to succeed in business in the United States.

This text--a combination of Harvard Cases and text-- examines the entrepreneurial process from the initial idea through business operations to harvest. It provides the knowledge and skills required for students pursuing careers as entrepreneurs as well as valuable ideas for those in a more structured business setting. Most importantly, it takes a close look at the process of identifying and pursuing opportunity, which has become increasingly important in restoring the competitive position of many U.S. industries in a global marketplace.

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs—in companies of all sizes—a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

24 Steps to Success! Disciplined Entrepreneurship will change the way you think about starting a company. Many believe that entrepreneurship cannot be taught, but great entrepreneurs aren’t born with something special – they simply make great products. This book will show you how to create a successful startup through developing an innovative product. It breaks down the necessary processes into an integrated, comprehensive, and proven 24-step framework that any industrious person can learn and apply. You will learn: Why the “F” word – focus – is crucial to a startup’s success Common obstacles that entrepreneurs face – and how to overcome them How to use innovation to stand out in the crowd – it’s not just about technology Whether you’re a first-time or repeat entrepreneur, Disciplined Entrepreneurship gives you the tools you need to improve your odds of making a product people want. Author Bill Aulet is the managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship as well as a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. For more please visit http://disciplinedentrepreneurship.com/

Despite popular belief to the contrary, entrepreneurship in the United States is dying. It has been since before the Great Recession of 2008, and the negative trend in American entrepreneurship has been accelerated by the Covid pandemic. New firms are being started at a slower rate, are employing fewer workers, and are being formed disproportionately in just a few major cities in the U.S. At the same time, large chains are opening more locations. Companies such as Amazon with their "deliver everything and anything" are rapidly displacing Main Street businesses. In The New Builders, we tell the stories of the next generation of entrepreneurs -- and argue for the future of American entrepreneurship. That future lies in surprising places -- and will in particular rely on the success of women, black and brown entrepreneurs. Our country hasn't yet even recognized the identities of the New Builders, let alone developed strategies to support them. Our misunderstanding is driven by a core misperception. Consider a "typical" American entrepreneur. Think about the entrepreneur who appears on TV, the business leader making headlines during the pandemic. Think of the type of businesses she or he is building, the college or business school they attended, the place they grew up. The image you probably conjured is that of a young, white male starting a technology business. He's likely in Silicon Valley. Possibly New York or Boston. He's self-confident, versed in the ins and outs of business funding and has an extensive (Ivy League?) network of peers and mentors eager to help his business thrive, grow and make millions, if not billions. You’d think entrepreneurship is thriving, and helping the United States maintain its economic power. You'd be almost completely wrong. The dominant image of an entrepreneur as a young white man starting a tech business on the coasts isn't correct at all. Today's American entrepreneurs, the people who drive critical parts of our economy, are more likely to be female and non-white. In fact, the number of women-owned businesses has increased 31 times between 1972 and 2018 according to the Kauffman Foundation (in 1972, women-owned businesses accounted for just 4.6% of all firms; in 2018 that figure was 40%). The fastest-growing group of female entrepreneurs are women of color, who are responsible for 64% of new women-owned businesses being created. In a few years, we believe women will make up more than half of the entrepreneurs in America. The age of the average American entrepreneur also belies conventional wisdom: It's 42. The average age of the most successful entrepreneurs -- those in the top .01% in terms of their company's growth in the first five years -- is 45. These are the New Builders. Women, people of color, immigrants and people over 40. We're failing them. And by doing so, we are failing ourselves. In this book, you'll learn: How the definition of business success in America today has grown corporate and around the concepts of growth, size, and consumption. Why and how our collective understanding of "entrepreneurship" has dangerously narrowed. Once a broad term including people starting businesses of all types, entrepreneurship has come to describe only the brash technology founders on the way to becoming big. Who are the fastest growing groups of entrepreneurs? What are they working on? What drives them? The real engine that drove Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs. The government had a much bigger role than is widely known The extent to which entrepreneurs and small businesses are woven through our history, and the ways we have forgotten women and people of color who owned small businesses in the past. How we're increasingly afraid to fail The role small businesses are playing saving the wilderness, small

You don't need this book. The entrepreneurial spirit is fueled by action, and we can all do more with less in the connected era. If you commit to the adventure of a lifetime and are willing to endlessly persist, we can each achieve career nirvana while inspiring the world around us. While the title of this book is true, if you're a caffeinated change maker thirsty for what's next, this synthesized narrative will provide innovative energy to help you start that new business, improve an existing company, fire up a side hustle, or evolve your own entrepreneurial ecosystem. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ben McDougal is an experienced entrepreneur and energized entrepreneurial ecosystem builder. He is passionate about the art of connection, accelerating entrepreneurs, and evolving ideas into reality. Ben has been inspired by thousands of fellow founders nationwide and wrote this book to help you champion change on the timeline of now. Learn more at www.BenMcDougal.com.

Leverage the framework of visionaries to innovate, disrupt, and ultimately succeed as an entrepreneur The Lean Entrepreneur, Second Edition banishes the "Myth of the Visionary" and shows you how you can implement proven, actionable techniques to create products and disrupt existing markets on your way to entrepreneurial success. The follow-up to the New York Times bestseller, this great guide combines the concepts of customer insight, rapid experimentation, and actionable data from the Lean Startup methodology to allow individuals, teams, or even entire companies to solve problems, create value, and ramp up their vision quickly and efficiently. The belief that innovative outliers like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have some super-human ability to envision the future and build innovative products to meet needs that have yet to arise is a fallacy that too many fall prey to. This 'Myth of the Visionary' does nothing but get in the way of talented managers, investors, innovators, and entrepreneurs. Taking a proven, measured approach, The Lean Entrepreneur will have you engaging customers, reducing time to market and budgets, and stressing your organization's focus on the power of loyal customers to build powerhouse new products and companies. This guide will show you how to: Apply actionable tips and tricks from successful lean entrepreneurs with proven track records Leverage the Innovation Spectrum to disrupt markets and create altogether new markets Use minimum viable products to drive strategy and conduct efficient market testing Quickly develop cross-functional innovation teams to overcome typical startup roadblocks The Lean Entrepreneur is your complete guide to getting your startup moving in the right direction quickly and hyper-efficiently.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE-PATRON PHILOSOPHER OF TODAY'S DISRUPTIVE ENTREPRENEURS His favorite personality was a "free spirit" an obsessed individual with a vision of the future and the will to make it so, a rebel who creates the future with childlike enthusiasm. Now, serial entrepreneur Dave Jilk and venture capitalist Brad Feld extract from Nietzsche a modern Art of War, connecting the dots to our high-tech business environment. Each quick, digestible chapter expands on a quote from Nietzsche to stimulate your thinking about a vital aspect of entrepreneurship, and stories from entrepreneurs help make the ideas concrete. Understand why hitting bottom might be the best thing that can happen, how your firm's "artistic style" can align your organization, and the role obsession plays in your success-and your definition of it. Glean insight and inspiration from every page of this surprising, approachable gem.

At a time of unprecedented change in the way we work, the editors of Monocle are here to help us envision, create, and make a success of a new business or reboot an existing one. As we face a world that is undergoing unparalleled change, no area is more dynamic than business. To help us understand, navigate, and succeed in this new world, the team at Monocle brings together its unique knowledge of culture, politics, economics, and business. Featuring stories of people running enterprises on every scale, the inspirational tales in this book provide readers with insights into the challenges and joys of creativity and entrepreneurship. These unmatched case studies reveal, among many success stories, how leaders choose branding, hire teams, and design workspaces for today’s needs. Whether you are planning to make a life change, start a new business, or reinvigorate an existing one, The Monocle Book of Entrepreneurs is a resource for anyone who wants to make a difference in their work and life.

Until Josiah Wedgwood, Britons ate from wood and pewter plates. Until Henry Heinz, women toiled over pickled foods. Until Michael Dell, few people owned a personal computer, let alone dreamed of buying one "built to order." According to business historian Nancy F. Koehn, these pathbreaking entrepreneurs shared a powerful gift: the ability to discern how economic and social change would affect consumer needs and wants. In Brand New, Koehn introduces us to six extraordinary leaders of brand creation who lived and worked during periods of widespread change: Josiah Wedgwood in the Industrial Revolution; Henry Heinz and Marshall Field in the Transportation and Communication Revolution; and Est?e Lauder, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Michael Dell in the Information Revolution. Through compelling and engaging profiles of these entrepreneurial visionaries, she reveals a provocative relationship between economic turbulence, household priorities, and company strategy that holds important lessons for today's brand builders. According to Koehn, these forward-thinking individuals understood the profound effects that socioeconomic change has on what customers want, have, and can afford as much as on what companies make-and were masters at exploiting the enormous business opportunities these demand-side shifts created. Indeed, the brands and companies created by these individuals have become such a part of everyday life that we've made them part of common speech: we pass the Heinz; eat off Wedgwood; order a Starbucks. Koehn draws from their diaries, correspondence, and official business records to demonstrate that these entrepreneurs were more than savvy marketers; they were institution builders. She shows how each used brand not as a logo, but as a vital strategic tool for creating best-of-class companies-and for building powerful organizational capabilities that supported their connections with customers and helped make new markets for their offerings. Distilling critical lessons for businesses operating in both the traditional and on-line worlds, Brand New will convince every entrepreneur of the remarkable power of brands to transform start-ups, gain competitive advantage, and change lives.