It's Your Biz: The Complete Guide to Becoming Your Own Boss

by Susan Solovic

A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller! Millions of employees parked in cubicles dream about starting their own businesses. And in today's economy, countless unemployed professionals are becoming entrepreneurs out of necessity. They may have good skills and ideas, but do they really understand what it takes to build a profitable venture? As owner and co-founder of the award-winning It'sYourBiz.com (formerly SBTV.com, or Small Business Television), Susan Solovic has years of experience in the small business trenches. In It's Your Biz she shows prospective entrepreneurs how to sidestep the pitfalls that doom more than half of all new businesses while dramatically improving their odds of success. The book strips away the usual dreamy calls to "pursue your passion," supplying the kind of candid, real-world advice readers truly need, such as how * Gauge whether you have the qualities required to succeed * Prepare for drastic culture shock * Build a busine

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

227 pages, Hardcover

First published October 11, 2011

About the author

SUSAN SOLOVIC is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, popular keynote speaker, internet pioneer, and attorney. A former small business contributor on ABC News, she regularly appears on Fox Business, Fox News, Wall Street Journal’s “Lunch Break,” Newsmax, and other stations. She is also a featured blogger on Constant Contact, Entrepreneur, FoxBusiness.com, AT&T Business Circle, MasterCard, and numerous other sites. The author of The New York Times bestselling It’s Your Biz, she consistently ranks among the top ten small business experts to follow on Twitter.

Reviews

[K.L. Bernard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting a small business for yourself may sound fun and challenging. You will want to ponder a few things before you begin. Do you know if you have the right stuff? Are you driven, do you have a positive attitude, are your communication skills polished and most importantly do you have the technical knowledge to get your business idea off the ground? Solovic is an entrepreneur and has started businesses of her own at a very young age and is very familiar with what it takes to pursue a dream of being your own boss. Solovic not only gives readers the in's and out's of starting a business, but forces readers to really think about the challenges that lie ahead.

The first section of this book will help readers identify the financial realities of starting a business. Solovic asks pertinent questions like, how much money can you afford to lose? How long can you go without an income from your business? How will you recover it the business fails? Solovic, gives specific information to help readers answer these very important questions. Solovic suggests that you have six to twelve months worth of income stashed before launching a new business. Take your age into consideration in order to have a feel for how long it would take you to recover if your business failed.

You may be asking if whether or not you should jump into a new business feet first or just go at it part-time. Solovic offers suggestions such as, not starting a business that would conflict or compete with your current employer. Also, don't allow the business, if you decide to go at it part-time, interfere with your current employer. Don't forget to give your customer your full attention, and manage your business like a business. Solovic gives personal, as well as, other success stories as examples of how others have achieved their goal of becoming a successful business owner.

If you thinking of buying an existing business, Solovic covers the pros and cons of this too. She offers suggestion of where to look and how to do the homework to study whether or not it would be the right venture for you. Learn how to familiarize yourself and become passionate about the business journey. Solovice states that if you can find a problem, you will be able to find a business opportunity. Learn how to search the market, create a business plan, hire smart and where to locate your business are just a few of the resources that can be found. Everything you need to know about starting a business is here. Solovic gives solid answers and specific true story accounts and examples of why a business will succeed or fail. The back of the book contains resources for start-ups and expanding businesses.

Susan Wilson Solovic is the owner and co-founder of ItsYourBiz.com., a highly successful video news and information site for entreprenuers. She is a weekly small-business contributor on ABC's Money Matters and a featured blogger on The Hugginton Post, AllBusiness, Fast Company, Constant Contact, and other sites, as well as a monthly columnist on WSJ.com.

[Brian Kirby · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's Your Biz was shallow and a majority of it consisted of warnings to anyone who might be interested in starting their own company. Don't do this, avoid doing that, a business is hard work, a business might not be right for you. While a agree that some of the warnings are real and should be headed, I feel that she could have written this book to keep people from starting a business. Solovic says she has been on multiple TV shows and created a successful company on her own. I won't dispute it because this book reminds me of a Today Show interview: shallow, brief, and full of basic common sense. I was hoping for a lot more. She also happens to be an attorney, and Solovic makes it clear that you shouldn't do much without an attorney. I managed to pick some good information out of the chapters, but overall, the book felt very dumbed down. I decided to skip to a few of the interesting chapters and then return it to the library. This book is not recommended.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for her for putting this together for us. She gives us some good insight on entrepreneurship. You'll probably get something good out of it.

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good primer for people in business for themselves or thinking about going into business for yourself.

[Ben Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful introduction to starting a business. Gives you good questions to consider that could save you a lot of time and money if you address them early on.

[Hazelcy Mangkiu · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some very good points and some, rather discouraging but that's just putting it out there so you'll be ready - only the worst case scenarios. Keep an open mind.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some are applicable but most of the resources are only applicable if you live in USA.

[Chengyun Chu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting stories of personal business. Opportunity is everywhere for you to find.