Author Description

Sixty-million years ago dinosaurs were driven to extinction by global climatic changes, making way, in the process, for the small, more adaptable, warm-blooded mammals. Similarly, in the new economic climate of the 1980s and '90s, small business owners and entrepreneurs are quickly becoming the dominant business species. While the floundering corporate giants continue to lay off workers at a rate of 400,000 annually, small businesses create millions of new jobs each year - a trend, most experts agree, that will continue well into the 21st century. In The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship, you'll find out how top business schools are preparing students to meet the challenges of the entrepreneurial-driven business climate of the 1990s and beyond. William Bygrave, a successful entrepreneur and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College, has brought together an all-star team of thinkers and doers to offer both established and aspiring entrepreneurs this comprehensive, highly practical guide. They include professors, consultants, and entrepreneurs - most of them successful business people, in addition to being first-class academics. Over the course of fourteen chapters, these experts cover all the angles, including how to tell if you've got the "right stuff" to be a success; start-up strategies; spotting market opportunities, marketing, and advertising; getting financing and managing debt; preparing business plans; managing a growing business and strategies for growth; legal and tax issues every small business person and entrepreneur should know; protecting intellectual property; and much more. Amazingly, while The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship brings you the collective wisdom of some of the top guns in the academic and business worlds, it requires no background or academic prerequisites. Featuring solid, substantive information written in an interesting and engaging style, this book is your golden opportunity to get a state-of-the-art education in entrepreneurship in your spare time and at a tiny fraction of the cost of an MBA program.