Disciplined Entrepreneurship

Interest in entrepreneurship is exploding globally yet many people believe that entrepreneurship cannot be taught — that those who become successful were born with something others lack. But the greatest entrepreneurs — Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and all the others — really had just one thing in common: They made great products.

Disciplined Entrepreneurship offers a comprehensive, integrated, and proven step-by-step approach to creating innovative, highly successful products. It focuses on the iterative process that marches you toward that optimal, elegant solution — the foundation for your whole business. Whether you're creating a physical good, a service, or the delivery of information, Disciplined Entrepreneurship breaks down the necessary processes into 24 steps that any industrious person can learn.

Yes, entrepreneurship can be chaotic, but situations that are innately unpredictable require a systematic framework that allows you to reduce your risk by identifying and addressing areas that you can control. The process outlined in this book can help ensure your success — or it can help you fail faster, if failure was already inevitable, and move you on to a better idea. This step-by-step guide to creating a new venture shows you how to:

• Create valuable specificity by focusing on one market opportunity that you can dominate
• Quantify the unique value you bring to your target customer — and how to translate that value into profit
• Design and build your product in the most efficient way possible
• Overcome common obstacles in getting your product adopted by customers
• Identify and test key assumptions
• And much more!

As the world becomes more complex and the problems become more urgent, the need for entrepreneurs will only grow. This framework will allow intrepid entrepreneurs to quickly and efficiently iterate their way toward the best solutions. Whether you're a first-time or repeat entrepreneur, Disciplined Entrepreneurship offers the tools you need to improve your odds of making a product people want — and need — to buy.

• Introduction
• Six Themes of the 24 Steps
• Step 0: Getting Started
• Step 1: Market Segmentation
• Step 2:Select a Beachhead Market
• Step 3: Build an End User Profile
• Step 4: Calculate the Total Addressable Market (TAM) Size for the Beachhead Market
• Step 5: Profile the Persona for the Beachhead Market
• Step 6: Full Life Cycle Use Case
• Step 7: High-Level Product Specification
• Step 8: Quantify the Value Proposition
• Step 9: Identify Your Next 10 Customers
• Step 10: Define Your Core
• Step 11: Chart Your Competitive Position
• Step 12: Determine the Customer's Decision-Making Unit (DMU)
• Step 13: Map the Process to Acquire a Paying Customer
• Step 14: Calculatge the Total Addressable Market Size for Follow-on Markets
• Step 15: Design a Business Model
• Step 16: Set Your Pricing Framework
• Step 17: Calculate the Lifetime Value (LTV) of an Acquired Customer
• Step 18: Map the Sales Process to Acquire a Customer
• Step 19: Calculate the Cost of Customer Acquisition (COCA)
• Step 20: Identify Key Assumptions
• Step 21: Test Assumptions
• Step 22: Define the Minimum Viable Business Product (MVBP)
• Step 23: Show That "The Dogs Will Eat the Dog Food"
• Step 24: Develop a Product Plan
• Postlude: A Business is More Than 24 Steps

Wow, I am sold on this book. I think it may be used as a great blueprint, even if all the answers and steps are not spelled out in the text. This is a book you may use as a starting point to get going, both in the practical world as well as in academia. OK, I wished it had been a lot longer and contained more examples, but I can live without it.

Really recommended reading.