Steven Rogers - Entrepreneurial Finance

PRAISE FOR

ENTREPRENEURIAL FINANCE

A brilliant educator and successful entrepreneur, Steven Rogers has taught a generation of students at leading business schools how to build opportunity for themselves and others. Thanks to this book, every aspiring entrepreneur canand shouldlearn from Rogers clear explanations of technical concepts, hundreds of examples that bring the concepts to life, and words of wisdom drawn from practical experience.

Jan Rivkin, Harvard Business School Professor of Business Administration; Senior Associate Dean, Chair, MBA Program

The road to entrepreneurial success is often fraught with peril, the specter of failure an ever present and unwanted companion. Yet, for all of the uncertainty along the way, some obstacles are entirely predictablenone more so than the challenges posed by poor financial management of the enterprise. Fortunately, no entrepreneur need ever again meet this all too predictable challenge unprepared, thanks to the extraordinary compendium of technical knowledge, wisdom, and lessons learned presented in clear, straightforward, unvarnished language by Professor Steven S. Rogers in his invaluable Entrepreneurial Finance. It is essential reading for any entrepreneur who wants to increase his or her odds of starting, acquiring or scaling a successful business enterprise.

Laurence C. Morse, Ph.D., Cofounder and Managing Partner, Fairview Capital Partners, Inc.

As a former student of Professor Steven Rogers, I can honestly say that his great insight and knowledge gave me the tools and courage to become an entrepreneur. He never sugarcoats the realities of the entrepreneurial journey. This book is the perfect prep before deciding to take the life-changing leap into entrepreneurship. There is a reason he was voted Best Professor twenty-seven times while teaching at The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. If you get the opportunity to take his class or workshop, run dont walk! You wont be disappointed!

Raquel Graham Crayton, Founder and CEO, Roq Innovation // Nekz

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This book is dedicated to my two beautiful, brilliant, and selfless daughters, Akilah Naeem and Ariel Nailah, and my talented, beautiful, wise friend Dawn!

T o this day, one of the sights that is most pleasing to me is a room full of people who are earnestly learning entrepreneurial finance. For 23 years, it has been my great pleasure to educate and inspire more than 10,000 people of all types and in a variety of settings. In addition to the thousands of degree-seeking MBA students in Executive MBA and full- and part-time programs at Harvard Business School and Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, I have taught thousands of students in the National Minority Business Supplier Program, United States Military Academy West Point, Inner City Capital Connections, the National Football League, the National Basketball League, the Urban League of Chicago, and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship. Recently I taught a session on entrepreneurship at the United Nations (UN), and I have also taught in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, and the Philippines. I hope to teach entrepreneurial finance to students and business owners on every continent in the world.

I love the case study method of teaching entrepreneurial finance. I learned it as a student at the Harvard Business School and practiced it as a case study writer for a year after graduating. Professor Bill Sahlman, my professor, who created the entrepreneurial finance course more than 30 years ago, was the best at using the case study method. When I put together my course on entrepreneurial finance, each of the 10 weeks involves a case study discussion. The situation-based learning that occurs in case study discussions provides a close approximation to the decision making that takes place in entrepreneurial settings.