The Entrepreneur's Playbook: More than 100 Proven Strategies, Tips, and Techniques to Build a Radically Successful Business

by Leonard C. Green, Paul B. Brown (Contributor)

Why stumble alone on a risky venture on your way to failure when you can tap into the best ideas and minds for increasing your chances for success? Most entrepreneurs have had to learn things the hard way--concepts such big ideas rarely make great businesses; laboring on a business plan can be a waste of time; and you will need dramatically more start-up money than you originally thought you did. Lenoard Green, an experienced investor, entrepreneur, and business professor, has encapsulated together all the inside secrets, proven strategies, and mistakes experienced so that you can learn it all beforehand, rather than when all your capital is on the line. Based on his popular Ultimate Entrepreneurship course, The Entrepreneur’s Playbook explains how Stripping away the complexity favored by business schools and the hype of the technology sector, the book reveals eighteen down-to-earth principles and dozens of tactics for every kind of business. Plus, the invaluable instruction available for you is now interactive. Dozens of exercises are given throughout the book that can be submitted online for feedback.

Genres: Business, Audiobook, Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

Published March 9, 2017

About the author

Leonard C. Green is a CPA, MBA, entrepreneur, and an entrepreneur in residence at Babson College. He is the founder of The Green Group, an accounting, tax, consulting, and advisory firm, and also is involved in 14 businesses in diverse markets. Green is one of the founders of the NASDAQ publicly traded Blue Buffalo pet food company that is the fifth-largest company in the United States in this category. His other business ventures include commercial and residential real estate, thoroughbred horses, sports teams, other publicly held companies, and several charities. Green also sits on the board of directors and board of advisors for a number of companies and foundations, and was elected a trustee at Babson College in 2013. In the past 15 years, Green has taught two of the most highly rated entrepreneurial courses at Babson College, including The Ultimate Entrepreneurial Challenge. His classes have been featured on CNBC Squawk Box and on ABC networks. In 2001, Green received the Edwin M. and Gloria W. Appel Award for outstanding contributions to the entrepreneurial spirit of academia at Babson College.

Reviews

[Tomato Flower · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got a strong takeaway to start a business with passion, existing customer demand, and defensible competitive advantage. It helped invigorate my strategy.

The author is experienced but fails to show humility - I discount my rating significantly because this reduces the credibility of the work. If the author shows signs of resistance to being wrong, cites no sources or mainly sources by close friends, uses personal experience and personal connections for almost all explanations, and does not show an openness to exploring countervailing viewpoints, I fear that the author would rather not approach the true nuances of his field but rather talk around them. This distances me from a work of nonfiction.

An example of this is the author's use of the word "proven" in the title and throughout the book. I'd stop short of saying that everyone needs to use the scientific method in business, but it is egregious to use the word proof when referring to strategies that have worked in one's personal experience without considering other demographics, contexts, and applications.

[Ableabelian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an Entrepreneur's Playbook, designed and tested for ENTREPRENEURS dammit. It includes such practical advice as "How to ask your family to borrow $100,000" (it's suggested to have the family accountant and lawyer there). How to manage work life balance? The author suggests "have someone else handle it." No, literally, the author straight up advocates that your spouse should handle all the "life" stuff, and you can just dive right in to your work.

There's also case studies - consider the student who was graduating with his MBA who had a choice between an 80k a year job that sounded neat, an 90k a year job, OR inheriting the families 10 million dollar construction business (pro tip: an advisory board would have resolved that problem).

Look, maybe if you're in that world of Harvard MBAs and are comfortable talking with big banks for six or seven digit figures of capital, this might have something sincerely practical for you. Maybe. For everyone else? The author comes across as completely clueless with platitudes like "Work hard" and "Never stop improving." You won't find anything really actionable here to help you start your business, you'll just find a guy with a lot of money talking about how hard he worked.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers is a fantastic pragmatic study of what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. Well written with concepts demonstrated in real life case studies. Len Green, with his proven track record, understands what really works. And for the price of the book you also get to submit your own responses to case studies and receive Len Green's personal review and feedback! I treated the book as though I were auditing his class and while it took some effort, it was well worth it.

[Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars. I picked this up on a lark not expecting much but found this an extremely handy, concise, focused outline of what it means to find an idea, assess the validity and execute against it (again, and again, and again). There was a weird jump from getting to market and building a team (he kinda skipped over that part to really focus on managing) but overall, great little book I'd recommend all the founders I work with give it a try.

[Dustin Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good principles and concepts to bring into your business. Not written all that well but you can't really hold too high of a bar for that since writing isn't his background. Some strong opinions from the author that may not be how you want to operate can leave you less than a fan, but I felt came honestly from his perspective.

[Jarred Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome Easy Impactful Read

Anyone who wants to understand business and how the winners in the entrepreneur world think it should think this is for you. Anyone who has a business, whether it’s starting struggling or succeeding this is you. Great easy quick read.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad, the SWOT method seems good for self reflection (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats to the business, write as much as you can...)
Much of the rest seems like stories of businesses that may or may not be applicable, and interesting stories.

[Tara Meissner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read. The writing was a bit choppy; I believe intentionally so.

I found some new take away information from this book. Reading it energized my creativity.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great ideas in this book, but I felt like they were rather one-sided and pretentious.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Some chapters were extremely useful; others were less so, but overall, I found it to be informative.

[Wen Jie Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leonard C. Green's give oft-repeated generic tips. Perhaps it is more useful to the first time startup person.

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda harsh I liked it

[Alexander Gleeson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It tells you at the beginning that Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is compulsory reading. Great advice!

[Harin 22 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is a Good Book!
Its for wanna be a entrepreneurs..