Blog
Essential business reading for the summer!
5th August 2010
Rachel Bridge (Enterprise Editor of the Sunday Times) has long been regarded as one of the UK’s best writers on business & enterprise. Her weekly columns (now sadly hidden behind Rupert’s paywall) provide detailed and realistic insights into the challenges and frustrations, as well as the upsides, of starting and growing a business.
However, Rachel’s new book - How to make a Million Before Lunch - has really raised the bar in terms of providing a blueprint for budding entrepreneurs. It is perhaps the most insightful and useful book yet written on how to start and build a business. It should be compulsory reading not only for entrepreneurs, but also for everyone concerned with teaching and studying business startups.
What sets How to Make a Million Before Lunch apart is its realism. Rachel “begins” at the “end” with perhaps the most important advice for anyone starting out. Begin by thinking about the kind of business you want to sell. Why? Because genuine shareholder value is only really created when an entrepeneur sells his or her business. Having the right exit strategy really does matter.
The book is packed with lots of other advice that certainly rings true from our experience in growing tutor2u. The need for entrepeneurs to focus on a specialist niche; to ensure that there is sustainable demand for the firm; to avoid taking on too many employees as long as possible; to be unafraid of breaking market “rules” and avoiding perfectionism. This is gold-dust advice from an author who has really taken the time to understand the business start-up challenge.
The glue that holds this terrifically entertaining book together is that it is packed full with practical examples from successful and less-than successful startups. tutor2u even gets a mention (on page 89!) The writing style is eminently readable - making the book ideal for both holiday reading and maybe even homework assignments.
Rachel Bridge will be performing her one-woman show, HOW TO MAKE A MILLION BEFORE LUNCH, at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in August. Her show, a hilarious account of getting to know real life entrepreneurs, will run at The Pleasance from 17th to 29th August 2010.
Tickets are now on sale and are available from The Pleasance box office or 0131-556-6550.
I will be there for the show on Wednesday 18th August and if there are any other colleagues in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival that day please get in touch and perhaps we can arrange a Tutor2u get together!
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.