Bill Aulet - Disciplined entrepreneurship: 24 steps to a successful startup

Contents

Praise for Disciplined Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is not only a mind-set but a skill set. The 24 Steps present a practical step-by-step process to channel the creative spirit to maximize the chances of success and ultimate impact.

Mitch Kapor, Founder, Lotus Development Corporation

While I am not a big fan of business plans, I am a big fan of the business planning process. This book provides an invaluable comprehensive framework for innovation-driven entrepreneurs to execute the business planning process.

Brad Feld, Managing Director of the Foundry Group, Co-Founder of TechStars, and Creator of the Startup Revolution book series

We have had Bill working with entrepreneurs in Scotland for the past three years using the 24 Steps, and we have been delighted with the results. Not only is the framework an extremely helpful road map, it has also given entrepreneurs the confidence to go on the journey and take their businesses to the next level. This is a very valuable approach that works across borders.

Alex Paterson, Chief Executive, Highlands and Islands Enterprise Scotland

This is the book I wish Id had when I was starting outconcise, great examples, in plain English, combining classic entrepreneurship theory with whats happening in todays startup world. If youre a serious entrepreneur, read it carefully and keep it close at hand for the journey ahead.

Frederic Kerrest, Co-Founder, Okta, and MIT Patrick J. McGovern, Jr. Entrepreneurship Award recipient

According to conventional wisdom, entrepreneurship is solely an innate trait. Nothing could be further from the truth. Entrepreneurship is a learned skill which can be honed through crisp execution. This book can help every entrepreneur dramatically increase the likelihood of success by providing step-by-step guidance on how to approach starting a new business. I recommend it to all ambitious entrepreneurs.

Doug Leone, Managing Partner, Sequoia Capital

Invaluable. This book superbly summarizes the lessons taught to us at MIT. It is the book I wish I had when we were launching HubSpot six years ago.

Brian Halligan, Co-Founder and CEO, Hubspot, and author of Inbound Marketing

Bill and I have had many discussions about entrepreneurship, and I really respect his perspective on the topic. While the spirit of entrepreneurship is often about serendipity, the execution is not. This book takes you through a systematic approach to significantly increase your odds of succeeding in making a world-changing and sustainable company. I loved the content and the simple nature of the book.

Joi Ito, Director, MIT Media Lab

Ideas are a dime a dozen but great entrepreneurs are what create value. They have to be passionate and skilled. Maybe passion cant be taught, but execution skills can, and this book does a wonderful job providing a structure and wisdom with each step to help entrepreneurs be more successful. I highly recommend it.

Paul Maeder, Founding Partner of Highland Capital and 2012 Chair of the National Venture Capital Association

Bills concept of a team creating an entrepreneur is intriguing but also validated by research and experience. This list of disciplined steps to creating a venture can not only help entrepreneurs increase their likelihood of success, but also identify the skills and people he/she will need on the team in the crucial early steps in a companys life, and to create a common language the team can share in talking about the tasks before them. I might have suggested that he call his book The Holistic Entrepreneur .

Thomas A. McDonnell, President and CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Social entrepreneurs must develop business models which balance social impact with business sustainability. Soko focuses on building a successful and scalable business model, which will lead to scaled social impact in the communities where we work. The 24 Step process outlined by Bill Aulet is a very useful framework for any type of business to get from an idea to full realization.

Ella Peinovich and Gwen Floyd, Founders of ShopSoko.com , Africas first mobile marketplace

I had the great pleasure to work with Bill and see how his methodical mind breaks down complex problems to their essence and then logically solves them to build a great company. This book will be a great help to entrepreneurs worldwide, which is very important because the world needs more entrepreneurs like Bill.

Thomas Massie, current member of Congress, and Founder, SensAble Devices and SensAble Technologies

Entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly scientific each day as the body of knowledge and research grows. This book is a valuable addition in that it provides an end-to-end guide to the product marketing process across multiple industries. It is what you would expect from MIT.

David Skok, Partner, Matrix Partners

Training our young engineers to be entrepreneurs is an imperative for the future and this book will help in that regard. It provides a road map for getting the product-market fit as tight as possible. There are many considerations in this process and this book captures them well and provides practical guidance on how to resolve them.

Tom Byers, Entrepreneurship Professorship Endowed Chair in the Stanford School of Engineering; Faculty Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program

This is an excellent practical guide for entrepreneurs so they can see the whole process and not miss critical steps as they bring products to market. Growing out of the actual experience of teaching MIT students, it adds to the growing body of thoughtful literature in the field that bodes well for the consistent development of young entrepreneurs.

Joe Lassiter, Faculty Chair of the Harvard Innovation Lab, and Heinz Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School

I am just so excited to see now that entrepreneurs everywhere are going to get what I got at MIT to help hone my entrepreneurial skills. It is years of knowledge and wisdom in a box that every entrepreneur should read, even if you already have a business.

Sal Lupoli, Founder of Sals Pizza and Lupoli Companies

As an intuitive entrepreneur, I prefer less structure. That being said, after having worked through the steps in this book to launch Lark, I realize that some structure is very valuable. This book provides enough guidance to help you succeed but not too much to stifle creativity. It is a must-have for entrepreneurs to read the first time but also as a reference.

Julia Hu, Founder and CEO of Lark Technologies

Disciplined Entrepreneurship is highly relevant and is on my recommended reading list for entrepreneurship students and entrepreneurs. It moves the reader forward through practical and important steps that they might otherwise miss, in their innovation-driven start-up journey.

Professor Gregory B. Vit, Director, the Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies, McGill University

Cover image: Marius Ursache

Cover design: C. Wallace

Copyright 2013 by Bill Aulet. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

Adaption of figure [Bowling Alley Market Development (p.38)] and brief quote from pp. 22-3 from INSIDE THE TORNADO by GEOFFREY A. MOORE. Copyright 1995 by Geoffrey A. Moore Consulting, Inc. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions .