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Entrepreneurs have long been taught that to be successful,they need to spend months perfecting a business plan andfinding investors before they can finally launch their business. But with the marketplace changing at lightning speed, this notion is not only outdated - it's costly.There's no point to building a business in a bubble. Today's entrepreneurs must embrace the idea of "failing fast." They need to connect with real customers and determine quickly whether their idea is worth pursuing, needs new direction, or should be abandoned altogether.
Fail Fast or Win Big shows entrepreneurs how to:
- Create a rapid prototype of their product or service
- Develop a business model instead of a business plan
- Test it repeatedly with customers so they can spot failure early
- Continue to refine the model based on customer interactions
- Leverage their network and resources in order torun lean
The longer it takes to launch a company, the more changes there will have been in the market place. Featuring real-life examples of entrepreneurs who set out to fail fast and ended up winning big, this ground breaking guide reveals how the right kind of risk can really pay off.
List of contents
Contents
Introduction: Why Today's Entrepreneurs Need to Read This Book 1
1 The End of Business Plans 7
2 The New Way: The LeanModel Framework 17
3 Ideas Are Great but Business Models Rule 27
4 Lean Resources: Less Is More 51
5 Rapid Prototyping, Right Now 69
6 The Whole Customer Truth 85
7 Entrepreneurs Have a New Investor: The Crowd 105
8 Opportunity Is Here and Everywhere 123
9 Entrepreneurs Who Tried to Fail Fast and Won Big 143
10 If You Want to Be an Entrepreneur, Be One 167
Recommended Reading 181
Index 185
About the Author 197
About the author
BERNHARD SCHROEDER is a director at the prestigious Lavin Entrepreneurship Center at San Diego State University. Previously a senior partner at CKS Partners, the world's largest integrated marketing communications agency, he has served as a marketing and brand expert for successful start-ups such as Amazon and Yahoo as well as Fortune 100 firms such as Apple, Nike, Kellogg's, GM, and American Express.
Summary
With today’s marketplace changing at lightning speed, how can entrepreneurs spend the traditional several months perfecting their business plans and finding investors before finally launching their business? They can’t! Because the truth is, the longer they take to launch their company, the more changes there will be in the marketplace--causing their business to be outdated before it even begins!Today’s entrepreneurs must avoid the temptation to play it safe and launch a business in a bubble. Instead, they need to embrace the idea of “failing fast.” Almost upon genesis of the idea, it is detrimental for the entrepreneur to connect with real customers and determine quickly whether their idea is worth pursuing, needs new direction, or should be abandoned altogether.In the groundbreaking, tell-it-like-it-is Fail Fast or Win Big, entrepreneurs will learn how to: • Create a rapid prototype of their product or service• Develop a business model instead of a business plan• Test it repeatedly with customers so they can spot failure early• Continue to refine the model based on customer interactions• Leverage their network and resources in order to run leanComplete with real-life examples of entrepreneurs who set out to fail fast and ended up winning big, Fail Fast or Win Big is the business plan you didn’t study in college. But just like the marketplace, those outdated concepts have changed too!
