The Small Business Bible

Everything you need to know to Succeed in your Small Business / Startup

a Book Review by Modern Entreprenure’s Blog 04/08 enhanced by Peter, Wiz4biz 3/14

The Small Business Bible by Steven Strauss is absolutely fabulous! Every new entrepreneur should stop whatever they are doing and read this book right now. This book is a great overview of every aspect of business for all forms of business. It doesn’t matter if your going to work from home or start a franchise. It doesn’t matter if you have $100 to start your business or $10,000,000, you need to read this book.

Figure out what kind of an Entrepreneur you are. One of the things I liked about the book is, it will help you figure out what kind of an entrepreneur you are (or if you are one at all). It gives realistic looks at the different kinds of risks that an entrepreneur would take and helps you find out if you can handle that much risk.

Never had a Business? This is the perfect book to read, if you no nothing about starting a business. It is a wonderful overview of the entire business cycle. There is a great section on writing a Business Plan and there is a full sample plan in the appendix. Strauss lists the common expenses in a Startup, so you can be realistic about what it will take to get your business going for the first six months.

Legal Insights. Strauss is a lawyer who has some really good legal insights. He not only describes all the different business forms, he gives advice on which ones would probably be the best for you. He talks about the various up-front costs, tax benefits, & legal protections each kind of business structure offers. It’s in nice & friendly English, no legalese anywhere.

Pick & Choose what you need. You may not need/want to read the entire book because there are different sections for different types of businesses. If you are going to work at home you would want to read that section, but could skip it otherwise. The same goes for the Franchise sections. There is some good advice for how to start a franchise and what to look for in a franchise.

My one Complaint about the book is that it wasn’t always as detailed as I would like. This is easily forgiving, because of its breadth of knowledge. It’s good to think of this book somewhat like a Business Encyclopedia. It will have a little bit on everything, but not details on everything.

A must-Read for a Startup. All in all, everyone who is thinking about starting a business should read this book. It won’t answer every question, but it will get you started up. This will help you figure out where to start and what to do next.

Comments: What do you think? What the most important advise you would give a Startup?