Launching New Ventures: An Entrepreneurial Approach

by Kathleen R. Allen

LAUNCHING NEW VENTURES, 8e provides tomorrow's entrepreneurs with the tools and thinking processes necessary to launch a successful new business in a global marketplace. The text is designed to follow the entrepreneurial process from idea generation to developing and testing a business model, to designing the business operations, and preparing for growth. The eight edition represents the most current thoughts, ideas, and practices in the field of entrepreneurship. Allen focuses on the critically important pre-startup and startup stages of a new venture, with special emphasis on the process and activities that must take place prior to opening a new business. The material is designed with the student in mind and incorporates examples and real-world advice based on the author’s and others’ years of working with entrepreneurs. Part One introduces the foundations of entrepreneurship and helps the reader understand the entrepreneur’s journey including the kinds of decisions that entrepreneurs make. It also explains the opportunity creation process and the tasks that must be undertaken before starting a business. Part Two addresses the heart of entrepreneurial activity -- the development and testing of a new business model through feasibility analysis. Here readers will learn the tools and skills needed to validate an opportunity, build a founding team, and estimate startup requirements. Part Three focuses on the planning that goes into designing an effective, scalable startup organization including a marketing plan. It also addresses the key topics of ethics, social responsibility, and the legal form of organization. Part Four looks at planning for growth and change in the new organization and includes growth funding, growth strategies, accessing the public markets, and planning for harvest and exit.

Genres: Business

608 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1995

Reviews

[Danijel Brestovac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Launching new ventures: an entrepreneurship approach

pg. 1- today, more than ever before, you must take charge of your career, manage it, and turn yourself into business of one, proving your value at every turn. ... Being opportunistic, building social networks, and becoming a resource gatherer and a critical thinker are vital. ... you must create values and you must give customers what they want and need.

Pg. 4- entrepreneurs have the ability to see opportunity where others do not because they have a well-developed opportunistic mindset.

Pg. 6- the problem with the notion is that to grow effectively requires an infrastructure and systems and controls that most new ventures don't have and can't afford to acquire.

Pg. 7-8- research points to the ability to take calculated risk, an achievement orientation or intense drive to succeed, a sense of independence, an internal locus of control, and a tolerance for ambiguity.

Pg. 11- launching a new business requires tremendous amounts of time and energy, as well as support from family and friends. It can also be very stressful, so you have to be in good health and physically fit to withstand the pressures.

Pg. 13- preparing to be a entrepreneur- it is probably the one thing that cannot be taught; you either have it or you don't. .... one of the best ways to prepare for entrepreneurship is to learn as much about it as possible, through magazine articles, books, newspapers, and - most importantly - talking to entrepreneurs.

Pg. 17- the entrepreneur in only one component in tin process of new venture creation. The behaviors and experience of the entrepreneur interact with all other component, the environment, is the most comprehensive in the venture creation process. It includes all those factors, apart from the entrepreneur's personal background, that affects the entrepreneur's decision to start a business.

Pg. 19- the business formation process starts when one or more people decide to participate in the formation of new business and devote their time and resources to founding. ... The intent to start tin business is not enough to make it happen. ... It is important to note that not all business closures are failures.

Pg. 21- by contrast, small business are generally started to generate an income and a lifestyle for the owner or the family.

Pg. 28-29- networking is the exchange of information and resources among individuals, groups, or organizations whose common goals are to mutually benefit and create value for the members. ... Entrepreneurs do not act autonomously but are "embedded in a social context, channeled and facilitated or constrained and inhibited by people's positions in social networks (aldrich & zimmer: 1986 entrepreneurship through social networks. In the art and science of entrepreneurship. Edited by d. L. Sexton and r. W. smilor. Cambridge, ma: ballinger"

pg. 41- conflicts of interest is one of the most universal problems in business today. A conflict of interest occurs when a person's private or personal interest clash with their professional obligations. ... It is rare for all these interests to be in complete harmony with one another.

Pg. 471- when sales decline entrep often in into a period of denial. They start paying their suppliers more slowly to preserve cash, they lay people off, they stop answering tin phone, and they insulate themselves against the demand of their creditors. Their panic frequently causes them to make poor decisions about how to spend the precious cash they have. They figure that if they can just hold on long enough, things will in around. ... What often happens is that entrepreneurs get so tied up with the day-to-day operations of the business that they don't have time to contemplate the 'big picture' or stay in tune with their customers. Consequently, all too often they don't see a potential crisis coming until it is too late.

[Kiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a text book, this one reads fairly easy.