Level Up: Rise Above the Forces Holding Your Business Back

Though the deck is stacked against small businesses, persistence and creative thinking can get entrepreneurs past tough times, advise politician and voting rights activist Abrams (While Justice Sleeps) and Hodgson, cofounder of an invoice payment company, in this pithy survey. The authors draw on lessons they learned running a small company that sold spill-proof water bottles for young kids, which closed in 2011, a casualty of lack of cash flow and leverage: they had to scale quickly but weren’t able to. Here, they look to help leaders face “the systemic hurdles challenging small businesses more than ever,” and cover what they learned about supply chain, design, scaling (leaders should focus on “really listening to the people closest to [their] products”), promoting a product (trade shows are helpful), staffing (patience is key, in employees and in leaders doing the hiring), and getting paid on time. Helpful lessons round out each chapter (“successful partnerships require extreme candor,” for example, and “get comfortable with ambiguity”), and the authors’ cheerleading and assurance that “it’s not you, it’s them” is enormously validating and backed up by easy-to-implement tips. Small business owners who feel lost in the trenches should give this a look. (Feb.)