cover image For Entrepreneurs Only: Success Strategies for Anyone Starting or Growing a Business

For Entrepreneurs Only: Success Strategies for Anyone Starting or Growing a Business

Wilson Harrell. Career Press, $21.95 (221pp) ISBN 978-1-56414-123-1

Entrepreneurial companies are the richest source of new jobs in America, according to the author, yet the inherently complex small business start-up process and the Herculean problems and pressures that engulf the small-business owner remain a mystery. Harrell, a former publisher of Inc. magazine, addresses these issues in this brief, anecdotal and strongly opinionated study. Arguing that small businesses comprise a new economic entity--the ``Third Market''--he analyzes marketing, styles of entrepreneurship (``buccaneer'' and ``farmer'') and the inevitable ``entrepreneurial transition'' from the ``genius'' stage through the creation of a large, successful enterprise. From his lucid views on risk-taking (``It's just one word and will give you . . . freedom to get your head above the crowd'') and his blunt comments on dealing with such major corporations as Clorox and Proctor & Gamble, to his pithy but salient thoughts on advertising, financing, boards of directors and the future prospects of America's entrepreneurial activities, Harrell's ideas are worth heeding, though more thoughtful development of each topic would have enriched his work. 50,000 first printing; first serial to Success magazine. (Apr.)