"All too often, entrepreneurs begin a small business to create a sense of security. They become sole proprietors or perhaps employ only one or two people. The business becomes a perpetual existence, like a mechanic, a doctor, a therapist, or a retailer who does the same thing over and over again to generate a stream of income. The small business person fails to grow, marking time by repeating the same service in a perpetual cycle throughout the life...

Written with the cooperation of Harvard Business School, an instructive and inspiring book for anyone who dreams of starting a highly profitable business. In 1998, three Harvard Business School graduates, two men and one woman, turned down six-figure salaries at big corporations, bet on themselves, and launched their own new companies. By their ten-year reunion, their audacity had paid huge dividends. They'd made many millions of dollars, created...

..."Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over? People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with why. It was their natural ability to start with why that...

"Harvard professor and negotiation adviser Deepak Malhotra shows how to defuse even the most potentially explosive situations and to find success when things seem impossible. Malhotra identifies three broad approaches for breaking deadlocks and resolving conflicts, and draws out scores of actionable lessons using behind-the-scenes stories of fascinating real-life negotiations, including drafting of the US Constitution, resolving the Cuban Missile...

Michael Gerber, the world's top business guru and bestselling author, shows would-be entrepreneurs how to get started, operationalize their winning idea, and design a business that will thrive.

"We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms -- big banks, big pharma, and big tech, just to name a few. But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the 'curse of bigness' can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it has spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself. History suggests that tolerance of inequality...

"About ninety-seven percent of a rocket's fuel is used in the first three feet of its launch. The same is true in launching a new business, product, or service. Those first few steps are absolutely critical. Scott Duffy has developed a practical approach for turning your big idea into a thriving venture by focusing on the crucial period immediately before, during, and after opening your doors (literally or online). His approach is based on his experiences...

On a bitter cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have...

Two entrepreneurial icons share experiences and insights into creating and building successful businesses.