The key to a successful business is planning, and this is the guide to getting it right from the start - by the man who wrote the bible on small business.

Looking for a new idea that you can turn into a business? Already have an idea that might work? About to take the plunge and want to road test your idea? Discovering New Business Opportunities shows you how to uncover new business ideas and how to decide which ones are worth pursuing. This book is the boot camp for new business ideas with scores of tips to help you; Look for new business opportunities Identify a viable market Anticipate the risks Build a business model Validate commercial potential Develop a start-up strategy.

Get from Idea to Product/Market Fit in B2B. The world has changed. Nowadays, there are more companies building B2B products than there’s ever been. Products are entering organizations top-down, middle-out, and bottom-up. Teams and managers control their budgets. Buyers have become savvier and more impatient. The case for the value of new innovations no longer needs to be made. Technology products get hired, and fired faster than ever before. The challenges have moved from building and validating products to gaining adoption in increasingly crowded and fragmented markets. This, requires a new playbook. The second edition of Lean B2B is the result of years of research into B2B entrepreneurship. It builds off the unique Lean B2B Methodology, which has already helped thousands of entrepreneurs and innovators around the world build successful businesses. In this new edition, you’ll learn: - Why companies seek out new products, and why they agree to buy from unproven vendors like startups - How to find early adopters, establish your credibility, and convince business stakeholders to work with you - What type of opportunities can increase the likelihood of building a product that finds adoption in businesses - How to learn from stakeholders, identify a great opportunity, and create a compelling value proposition - How to get initial validation, create a minimum viable product, and iterate until you're able to find product/market fit This second edition of Lean B2B will show you how to build the products that businesses need, want, buy, and adopt.

A practical guide to effective business model testing 7 out of 10 new products fail to deliver on expectations. Testing Business Ideas aims to reverse that statistic. In the tradition of Alex Osterwalder’s global bestseller Business Model Generation, this practical guide contains a library of hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas. Testing Business Ideas explains how systematically testing business ideas dramatically reduces the risk and increases the likelihood of success for any new venture or business project. It builds on the internationally popular Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas by integrating Assumptions Mapping and other powerful lean startup-style experiments. Testing Business Ideas uses an engaging 4-color format to: Increase the success of any venture and decrease the risk of wasting time, money, and resources on bad ideas Close the knowledge gap between strategy and experimentation/validation Identify and test your key business assumptions with the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas A definitive field guide to business model testing, this book features practical tips for making major decisions that are not based on intuition and guesses. Testing Business Ideas shows leaders how to encourage an experimentation mindset within their organization and make experimentation a continuous, repeatable process.

Innovate your way toward growth using practical, research-backed frameworks The Art of Opportunity offers a path toward new growth, providing the perspective and methods you need to make innovation happen. Written by a team of experts with both academic and industry experience—and a client roster composed of some of the world’s leading companies—this book provides you with the necessary tools to help you capture growth instead of chasing it. The visual frameworks and research-based methodology presented in The Art of Opportunity merge business design thinking and strategic innovation to help you change your growth paradigm. You’ll learn creative and practical methods for exploring growth opportunities and employ a new approach for identifying what “opportunity” looks like in the first place. Put aside the old school way of focusing on new products and new markets, to instead applying value creation to find your new opportunity, craft your offering, design your strategy and build new growth ventures. The changing business ecosystem is increasingly pushing traditional thinking out to pasture. New consumers and the new marketplace are demanding a profound adjustment to the way companies plan and execute growth strategies. This book gives you the tools to create your roadmap toward the new state of growth, and gain invaluable insight into a new way of thinking. The Art of Opportunity will help you to: Start looking at business growth from a new perspective Create value for the customers, company and ecosystem Innovate strategically and design new business models Develop a new active business design thinking approach to innovation Your company’s goal is to grow, and to turn non-customers into customers. The old ways are becoming less tenable and less cost-effective. The Art of Opportunity outlines the new growth paradigm and gives you a solid framework for putting new ideas into practice.

This textbook is intended for use in introductory Entrepreneurship classes at the undergraduate level. Due to the wide range of audiences and course approaches, the book is designed to be as flexible as possible. Theoretical and practical aspects are presented in a balanced manner, and specific components such as the business plan are provided in multiple formats. Entrepreneurship aims to drive students toward active participation in entrepreneurial roles, and exposes them to a wide range of companies and scenarios.