Out of the Cubicle and Into Business

This is a fantastic reference if you are thinking about going into business and want the rigor and discipline to ask yourself all the challenging questions before you start. Lea walks you through all the aspects of starting a business, from deciding what your business will be, putting together a complete business plan, and setting up the legal entity that will be "your business".

Along the way she poses 114 questions that every entrepreneur ought to be able to ask themselves...and yet many of us fail to do so until we are already in business and things aren't going the way we planned! Space is provided right in the book to write your answers, so you don't even need to fret about starting up the computer to get started. The icing on the cake lies in the narrative around the questions, giving these queries depth and increasing your understanding of why they are so important.

Add in the "Perspectives", little pieces of information that make you look at business in a different way, and you have a dynamite book. My favorite is her perspective titled "Business Plans - It's not the Document"; which explains that the goal of doing a business plan isn't just to get the document written -- rather, it is to ask the probing questions and really get a good feel for the feasibility of your business model.

The book includes a section on the different legal entities you might choose for your business, choosing how you are going to keep track of your business financially, and several other considerations. Plus a complete Glossary of Terms.

I recommend this book for those that might otherwise explore business planning software (which is costly and really unnecessary, in my humble opinion!) for its complete coverage of the basics and beyond.

Available both as an e-book and in paperback: http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=30345