The Web Startup Success Guide (Books for Professionals by Professionals) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This should be a couple of blog entries in a B+ blog, not a $20 book.
The book is not only badly written, it does not hardly any useful content either. Everything said here should be obvious to any person who has lived for any time near any web business. The author has unnecessarily made the book fat by having many long interviews with his friends - most of them add little to the content .
If you find this book useful - you should ask if you are the right person to run a business and perhaps spend sometime learning "basic business stuff" first.
Here is my recap of content:
* Chapter 1: Introduction: Funding a web startup today is easier than ever and many options exist including self-funding (duh!!)
* Chapter 2: Create value. There is no shortage of just "ideas" (duh, again !!)
* Chapter 3 & 4: There are lot of tools available to you like SaaS platforms, open source cms and local meetup groups (duh, duh ,duh !!)
* Chapter 5 is about raising money. It is filled with meaningless generalizations ("raising money is like falling in love") - none of them of much use.
* Chapter 6 is about social media. More generic stuff. Nothing said here is so remarkable that you cannot find it online - just google "how to market on social media" and just read the top 5 links. you will be WAY AHEAD of this book.
* Chapter 7 - The summary is - You need to be clear about what your USP is (duh !!)
* Chapter 8 - A long chapter on GTD methodology. There is no reason for it to be in this book. If GTD is your way, read a book on GTD.
* Chapter 9 - a needlessly long chapter about author's recommendation of 6 blogs to read.
Throw this book in fireplace - that will be more useful.

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For every one brick-and-mortal business that is created, there are ten web startups, begun by everyday folks who have development knowledge and access to a web browser. The Startup Success Guide is a highly readable, on-point text written by an authority in startup consulting. Packed with unique interviews with successful startups and their founders, and offering loads of practical advice and what-not-to-dos, this book clearly has a time and a place in today's economy, where the ranks of un- and under-employed developers increases.

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How to Start a Successful Home-Based Freelance Bookkeeping and Tax Preparation Business Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This books certainly contains some helpful information if you're going to start you own bookkeeping business, but 3 major things make me recommend you think twice before purchasing this book:

1. To say frankly, this books is about starting ANY professional service business, not just bookkeeping. It certainly refers to some accounting topics - i.e. choosing accounting software etc., but essentially it gives you no idea about how to build competitive advantage of your bookkeeping business and doesn't tell you any ins and outs of this particular business type
2. This books is poorly edited - it has two authors and it looks like these authors wrote different part of the books and nobody took time to make sure that the book is cohesive and doesn't say the same ideas twice. Pictures in this book just magnify the impression of a poor editor work - they are absolutely not stylish and resemble the standard picture set of MS Word in 1990s. This is certainly not to say that poor editing will preclude you from understanding what this book is about, but I expected much more from the item priced at $40.
3. Talking about "Tax preparation" part of this book, the whole content of this chapter can be put into one sentence "At some point of time in developing your bookkeeping business, you might find it interesting to expand your services into tax preparation field". Well, this looks too simplistic to me - taxation is one of the most complicated areas of finance and just to say that sometimes you will wake up and decide to get into this field and next morning you will be there is just odd.
To put is short, if this book cost $15 and were titled "A couple of nice ideas about getting into the world of services business", I would certainly give it 5 star. But a combination of this book's actual name and its $40 cost only earns a 3 star rating.

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This book is a genuine resource, packed with proven methods, and valuable interviews with real bookkeepers and accounting professionals. These ideas and techniques show you how to quickly build a flourishing full-time or part-time home-based bookkeeping or tax practice, and keep it running profitably.
Some of the topics covered in this volume:
How to get started and obtain all necessary business licenses
How to manage your cash flow for maximum profitability and business success
How to get clients and keep them
How to attract the most profitable clients
How to increase referrals
How to set and collect your fees How to offer tax services to your existing clients
How to get referrals from CPA offices and other financial professionals
Information on how to become a Certified Bookkeeper through the AIPB
How to comply with the IRS recordkeeping requirements
How to avoid your liability for the dreaded IRS Trust Recovery Penalty
And much, much more!

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