Reading :: Mastering Your Entrepreneurial Journey

 Mastering Your Entrepreneurial Journey: From Vision to Venture

By Andreas Kuckertz, Thomas Leicht, Maximilian Schieu, Indra Da Silva Wagner, and Bernd Ebersberger

This open-access book was written by five members of the Institution of Marketing & Management at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. It’s pitched to a general audience who is interested in entrepreneurship. In this relatively short book, they cover:

• What entrepreneurship is
• How to begin an entrepreneurial journey
• How to validate the problem
• How to conduct entrepreneurial prototyping and product development
• How to develop a business model
• How to pitch
• How to develop and leverage a network
• How to deal with entrepreneurial failure

Honestly, the things they cover are eerily similar to those I cover in my classes and workshops. They tell us that this book addresses a gap in the entrepreneurial literature: On one hand, successful entrepreneurs have written lots of books based on their personal experiences; on the other hand, academics have written well-sourced articles with evidence about what works. This book is in the middle: Based in evidence from the academic literature (much of which was written by the authors), but accessible to aspiring entrepreneurs (p.2). The book can be read sequentially or not (p.3). 

The chapters are fairly short, they offer heuristics to help readers conceptualize the advice, and all end with “Three Things to Do Right Now” — specific advice for the readers to take. I liked this structure, although the “Three Things” tended to be a bit vague — I would have preferred them to be more systematically tied to the heuristics or principles on one hand, and a specific example of a venture on the other. In some cases, the advice is vague enough that I think new entrepreneurs may find it hard to follow. For instance, the chapter on business models (the authors do not number their chapters) ends by suggesting readers identify market segments, resources, etc. Although they mention Osterwalder and Pigneur in the chapter, they don’t show the Business Model Canvas or discuss how the different segments dynamically relate, so it’s hard for readers to visualize how these different parts relate. Similarly, the chapter on pitching goes over Sequoia Capital’s outline for a pitch, but they don’t note that the pitch genre looks different for pre-seed vs. seed rounds or angel investors vs. VCs (for instance). 

And that’s okay. New entrepreneurs should be reading a variety of books. This one is a succinct, accessible introduction to the basics of startups and Lewan Startup. I would recommend it as a good 50,000-foot overview, and I could see using it in an early-stage accelerator — with more specific texts to cover the details. For that application, I highly recommend it.