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dwarshay's blog

Top 4 "Where Should I Start" Resource Recommendations

Students in my Entrepreneurial Process course at Brown and other aspiring entrepreneurs ask me all the time what are the first resources they should read to get started. Here are my top four recommendations:

Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Jump Start Your Business Brain by Doug Hall
Some Thoughts on Business Plans by William Sahlman (available at www.hbsp.com)

Three Freakonomic Cliches

This morning's NY Times contained another interesting insight from the authors of Freakonomics, Stephen J. Dubner and Steve D. Levitt.  I love their stuff, and particularly this insight because it reinforces my previous post about developing talent. 

Entrepreneurial Success Lessons From Tiger and MJ

Did you catch the recent 60 Minutes interview of Tiger Woods? 

Priceless

Being in control of my destiny may be overstating things, but yesterday reminded me why I love having the freedom and independence at least to control my schedule.  It's one of the things that I think entrepreneurs love most.

After spending a productive day visiting prospects with a business partner, I returned home and ran upstairs to my third-floor home office to respond to the day's e-mail.  I had forgotten to put on the air conditioning and so my office was sweltering.  At the same time, I heard my kids invade downstairs and thought how nice it would be to grab at least one of them and run down the block to the nearby pool for a quick dip.

What If the Hokey Pokey is Not What It's All About?

What if?  Isn't that the essence of entrepreneurship that we find it so intoxicating?   
How challenging to conceive of a new product, a new way of doing something, a new service.  And how rewarding to execute by bringing that product or service to market and have impact on people's lives.

Entrepreneurship gives us permission to think out of the box.  To challenge conventional wisdom.  To tilt at windmills, to buck the system, to be irreverant, to break the rules. 
Being an entrepreneur allows us to be creative in the truest sense: to birth something that has never existed before.  And to do so in all its complexity.