“Start and build a high-profit business, choose exactly the right product for you, outsell your competition, and put yourself onto the road to riches” (Brian Tracy, New York Times–bestselling author). The Smart Start Up helps readers start strong and stay strong in the early phases of growing their businesses, providing fundamental strategies for beating the odds. With this information, entrepreneurs will be able to reach the success level of their dreams—whether that’s to create a legacy for generations or to follow the build-and-sell-it road to success. Within these pages, Tom Hopkins and Omar Periu delve deeply into the nuances of business ownership both on the practical and emotional side of things. They will help readers avoid some of the most common pitfalls entrepreneurs face. Readers will learn how to establish a compass they and the rest of their teams can rely on to guide business decisions going forward. Topics covered include: self-analysis as an entrepreneur; how to evaluate a business idea; how to choose the best structure for a business, including working with legal and accounting professionals; business communication skills; hiring and managing team members; prioritization; selling skills; marketing strategies; negotiation skills; and how to keep clients happy long term. “Own this book and you’ll have the opportunity to be guided to your own success by two of the best and proven teachers in the business.” —Bob Burg, bestselling coauthor of The Go-Giver and The Go-Giver Influencer “Inside the pages of this masterpiece, you’ll get the formula for success that gives you the winning edge in the hyper-competitive marketplace.” —Jeb Blount, CEO of Sales Gravy and author of Fanatical Prospecting

Praise for Smart Start-Ups "Silver's new book is a masterpiece of clarity concerning the next great entrepreneurial wave, and my only problem with it was the charley horse in my elbow I got turning the pages." -Robin Richards, founding President, MP3.com, and CEO, Notification Technologies Inc. "Silver is a modern-day Prometheus. For community entrepreneurs, Smart Start-Ups contains the secrets of fire from the heavens. If you work with communities of any kind, you ignore this book at your own peril." -John Szeder, former senior game developer, Digital Chocolate, Inc., and CEO, Mofactor, Inc. "Silver dives in and pulls the naked truth out of the world of online communities. There's nothing like it on the shelves. He speaks with the best and brightest in the mobile and online community markets." -Sean Malatesta, founder, Yack Media Services, and Vice President, Indiagames, Inc. "Smart Start-Ups is a must-read for any aspiring Internet entrepreneur. Silver cuts right to the heart of the important fact that communities are like entire nations, but without geographic borders, and they're creating the greatest transformation since the Industrial Revolution." -Clarence Briggs, founder and CEO, AIT.com "Silver's book is an excellent, captivating, ingenious, and essential read for anyone who wants to know how to create wealth by starting an online community. One mark of a great book is that it makes you see things in a new way; Silver certainly succeeds in that respect." -Kyle E. Gillman, founder and CEO, Forgefinder, Inc.

This book distills lessons gained from the author’s 20 years of experience, building out and staffing two enormously successful Internet startups and helping firms land the talent they need to reach their greatest potential. Don't rely on instincts alone. Hiring is king and while the lesson seems so basic, so many good companies stumble and lose their stride just when they were poised for rapid growth. Why? Their leaders treated hiring as a tedious chore. They posted an ad hoc ad. Took the first person with the right skills. Hired for immediate needs, rather than future flourishing. Whether you're a high-tech entrepreneur taking a startup public, or a food truck vendor with a concept that's taking off, Hire Smart from the Start offers a proven formula to help you: Find candidates whose values and working style fit your business Spot the 5 types of applicants you should never, ever hire Motivate "reach" candidates to leave their jobs and take a chance on your vision Develop meaningful incentives that make people stay Accelerate success: hire smart from the start. This book shows you how.

More people are starting tech companies today than ever before. Tech Incubators are popping up all across the country, and shared office space is available everywhere. When people think about building a startup, they immediately jump on the seemingly tried and true path...find a co-founder, get into an incubator, start pitching venture capitalists on your business plan, then crush it! But there's another way...a better way...a smarter way....the Smart Startup way. In the Smart Startup, veteran serial entrepreneur John Elder describes his tried and true method for building startups without the need of a co-founder, an incubator, or venture capital money. John first started building Smart Startups in the mid 90's when he created one of the Internets earliest advertising exchanges and sold it to a publicly traded company at the height of the first dot-com boom. After that he built a b2b biotech company and sold it to a group of investment bankers before developing one of the earliest desktop SEO software titles used by over three million people. If you've ever dreamed of starting your own online business, this is the book for you.

Children need exercise, not just to stimulate their bodies but to stimulate their brains as well. The first five years of a child’s life are now seen as crucial to later health, well-being and success. Exercise and good diet are especially important in ensuring that the pre-schooler has a healthy start in life, develops a good brain and avoids the problems of obesity. Margaret Sassé has had decades of practical experience in the area of child development, and in training parents and teachers on the importance of healthy food and exercise. Smart Start is a practical guide for parents on how to give their children the best start in life, with down-to-earth advice on diet and exercise to encourage optimum physical and intellectual development. The book is carefully organised to provide a step-by-step programme for each year. Simply written, and attractively presented with dozens of lively illustrations and practical exercises, it will soon become an indispensable tool in raising your child.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

In the spirit of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, this story introduces readers to the hidden magical—and mysterious—world of gnomes, elves, and trolls. Eleven-year-old Sarah moves with her family from New York City to rural Hadley, Connecticut. She's eager to explore her new home and meet new friends, but she never expected to befriend an old garden gnome. Readers join Sarah as she is drawn into a secret world under our feet. Sarah uses her instincts to calm old rivalries and help the underworld elves, gnomes, and more join her in the upperworld.

"An experienced accountant and tax advisor tells aspiring business owners how to assess their plans, set up their business and finances right, and not lose money."--

Children get a Smart Start with colorful activities that practice science, math, reading, geography, and thinking skills. Fun art projects provide opportunities for hands-on activities such as cutting, gluing, coloring, and more! Children practice foundational skills such as following directions, using picture clues, and problem solving. There are six certificates for children to display and a full sheet of stickers to mark their achievements!