"The public-private partnerships of the future will need to embody a triple-bottom-line approach that focuses on the new P3: people-planet-profit. This book is for anyone who wants to improve the way that we live in cities, without waiting for the glacial pace of change in government or corporate settings. If you are willing to go against the tide and follow some basic lessons in goal setting, experimentation, change management, financial innovation, and communication, real change in cities is possible."--Publisher's description.

The retail market in the UK is worth more than £400 billion annually and employs over 3 million workers, while in the US 29 million people create over USD $4 trillion of revenue through the industry. Despite the challenge to establish stores and big-box retailers, there's a rapid increase in the number of retail start-ups and consistent growth in the independent sector. From beard shops and barbers, through cafes and coffee shops, to 'retailment' concept stores and boutique consumer-focused experiences, the specialist retail sector is booming. The Retail Start-Up Book provides clear guidance and advice on how to develop a winning retail strategy that seamlessly merges online and offline tactics. Introducing the science of shopping and how to understand customer behaviours and needs, it explores the essential steps of developing a business plan, marketing and promoting a business and advising on buying and visual merchandising. Building on years of retail experience nationally and internationally, in large groups and with independent retailers, The Retail Start-Up Book meticulously provide invaluable practical insights to help new retailers hit the floor running, or more established organizations grow their business and nurture their profits.

If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

"The critical, yet sometimes missed out on things in starting your venture!" We all, at one point or the other, have fostered the idea of starting our own business. A lot of ideation, brainstorming, deliberation and preparation goes into it, and somewhere amidst all that hard work and excitement, the adrenaline rush is so high that we miss out on the supposedly common wisdom on how to go about the whole process. This book talks about those tiny nuggets, the common wisdom that is sometimes ignored, and sometimes even compromised upon. Every year you see more and more entrepreneurs venturing out into the unknown, despite being fully aware that the journey is going to be arduous, tedious, extremely difficult, and full of unforeseen challenges. One of the prime reasons behind them doing so is the fact that despite all those hardships, the overall process is one of the most enjoyable, memorable, and yet enriching experiences you would be having in your professional life. It accelerates your learning process, takes your career up a few notches in a really short period of time, and inculcates into you qualities that you never even knew you possessed, or could develop. But as with most of the new pathways, you would stumble multiple times during the course of the journey, and even find yourself unable to do things the way you think they should be done. Some of these setbacks you would be able to shrug off, some others would bring you down to your knees - albeit whether this 'being brought down to your knees' is temporary or permanent is something that will solely depend on you. This book makes an attempt to tell you of a number of scenarios you would be facing during the course of your startup, and make a recommendation on how to proceed for most of the scenarios, if not all. And if you are on the fence over the decision on whether to go for this book or not, let me ask you a few questions: Would you not prefer to be aware of some of the challenges that lie ahead of you? And if possible, know how to get past them once they do pose you in due course? What if you had some idea as to the bottlenecks you can face, the reasons why you would be possibly facing them, and how could you possibly avoid them (or at least get out of the jam)? There would be a lot of times when you would be posed with a question in the early stages of your startup, and the answer though right in front of you, wouldn't just feel right. Does it not make sense to see what are the supporting arguments behind each option at such junctures and then make an informed decision? This book does exactly all that; it makes an attempt to touch-base on all points that goes on in your mind - be it as a startup founder, or as someone who is just contemplating to start on his own. Things that go on in your mind, things that you try talking to your friends and colleagues about - this book does that for you. It would act as that friend and converse with you on those very lines. Details on the book: File format : PDF (ebook) Total number of pages : 71 Part of the series : 50 Pages or Less (First book in the series) PS: Although the total number of pages in the book is 71, that includes the introduction and other segments as well. The main subject matter, as promised, is less than 50 pages.

Starting Up Smarter: Why Founders Over 50 Build Better Companies delivers a counter-intuitive message about entrepreneurship and startup success. Contrary to the widespread belief that youth is a startup advantage, research shows that older entrepreneurs are far more likely to create socially valuable, profitable, and high-growth companies. Founders over 50 manage more than half of the new businesses launched in the US during the past 5 years. Their stories provide inspiration and insights for entrepreneurs of all ages, and for everyone seeking to change the world for the better. This book analyzes how and why older founders so consistently outperform their younger counterparts by embodying 21st century entrepreneurial imperatives such as positive social impact, shared stakeholder value, and regenerative sustainability. In Starting Up Smarter, entrepreneurs who have built profitable, socially valuable businesses share their experiences and reflections about launching companies with social purpose in healthcare consulting, sustainability and solar energy solutions, home care franchise ownership, restaurants, publishing, water filtration, and more.

"The section on testing your new business concept is unlike anything in any other book on start-ups. How much is it worth to know that your new business is something your customers will want--before you invest in it?" --Pat Cunningham, Wall Street Journal Advertising Advisor and former Vice Chairman, N. W. Ayer Global Advertising Agency "Start-Up Smarts is an explosive work of ten powerful, practical steps that lay out reality." --Dr. Jeffrey Magee, Publisher, Performance Magazine To make sure your start-up succeeds in the most profitable way, you need to plan and prepare your way to prosperity. This means learning the secrets of successful entrepreneurs--from knowing whom to trust to adapting in a changing marketplace. Start-up specialists and thriving business owners Barry H. Cohen and Michael Rybarski reveal the critical keys to getting your new business up and running a profit, in-cluding how to: Create a Flexible Business Plan Find Out What Your Customers Really Want Capitalize on the Right Trends Hire the Best People Choose the Most Lucrative Partners Complete with real-life success stories from first-time entrepreneurs and the best businesses to start right now, Start-Up Smarts guarantees your new business will prosper in any market!