Call a business Angel. Practical Funding and Commercial Advice for Start-ups, SMEs and Innovators is written by Eileen Doyle. Eileen has a wealth of knowledge and insights built up over an extensive career as an ASX board director, one of the longest serving directors of the CSIRO, angel investor and more. In 1993 she was Australia’s first Fullbright Scholar in Business Management and has a PhD in Mathematics and Statistics.
I remember saying to Eileen when I read the first draft of her book, Call a business Angel, ‘this is the book I wish I’d read before I started my first three businesses’. Fortunately, I read it before I started the 4th one.
Call a Business Angel is THE book anyone who is thinking about starting a business should read whether you are a tech start-up, heading out on our own to build a consultancy business or are an innovator.
Eileen was determined to write a book that was practical and actionable, and this she has done.
The nine chapters cover everything from:
- Invention to innovation
- How business angels think;
- Basic business management
- The basics of business management (an ABSOLUTE MUST chapter),
- and five toolkits: Strategy, business planning, marketing, portfolio and tracking,
As Eileen says in her Preface.
‘Many entrepreneurs and small businesses fail not because of a poor idea but because of poor analysis and execution. Too many companies and their managers have either forgotten or never knew about the quality basics of analysing ideas and how they contribute to sustained business success.’
I could hug (and actually have hugged) Eileen as a result of this insight.
So many smart, intelligent, creative, innovative people I know have come unstuck when they’ve tried to build a business. And I know how hard it is as I am on my fourth. I’ve made plenty of mistakes and learnt a lot of the lessons Eileen shares the hard way. But I am the ‘execution Queen’ and that, quite frankly, has in an odd ‘reverse osmosis way’ helped me through.
Don’t learn the hard way about creating, building and growing/scaling your idea, innovation, knowledge.
Get a hold of Eileen’s book and leapfrog the thousands that don’t.
You can buy the book right here.
And, if you’d like to know more about Eileen and the book go to her website Call a Business Angel where you can register and receive two chapters for free.