You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business

Barry Moltz, a high-flying consultant turned into a serial entrepreneur, provides a down to earth read documenting the psychological ups and downs of starting and managing your own business. Set in a conversational tone, the book is focused on the emotional aspects of entrepreneurship: family and friends, dealing with failure and success, managing expectations, networking, and leadership. "You need to be a little crazy" is a good-humored book, with plenty of great quotes, and well heeded advice. Personally, I am just embarking on the road to entrepreneurship, but many of Barry Moltz's concepts already ring true. Don't expect a tactical checklist, or a new management theory, that's not what this book is about. "You need to be a little crazy" is about the human side of starting a business - the pains, the victories, and everything that gets caught in between. Few business textbooks cover these topics, highly recommended!

This is a one-of-a-kind book that provides an emotional look into the world of the entrepreneur. The book delivers key insights into how to approach certain situations, but more importantly it delves into the trials and tribulations of being an entrepreneur like no other book available. For current entrepreneurs, Barry's book reads like a conversation with a businessess confident who has experienced exactly what you are currently going through and what you have experienced as an entrepreneur. For anyone considering the start of a new business, this is the only book I have found that can prepare you for the emotional roller coaster that you may encounter. This is a must for any business book library.

Too many business books written these days focus on the positives of running a business ninety percent of the time and gloss over the negatives with the remaining ten percent of the book content...not Moltz. He is so candid and dead-on accurate with his observations/advice it will make you wince at times. If you still want to go into business for yourself after reading this book then you are either very prepared to do so...and/or a little bit crazy.

Barry Moltz, founder of three start-up companies, shares what he's learned about being an entrepreneur in "You Need To Be A Little Bit Crazy: The Truth About Starting And Growing Your Business." Moltz writes: "The reader should make no mistake; it is easier and in the long run more profitable to get a job than to start your own business. If you want to have your own business for the money, then forget it: go get a job. That motivation will never sustain you through the ups and downs of starting and building your business." Moltz describes himself as an entrepreneurholic and says entrepreneurship is a disease, a curse even. He also says the natural business world is indifferent to your success or failure. He says high-tech entrepreneurs need to forget the 1990's and need to learn how to "right-size" their dreams. Moltz writes: "Not every business that an entrepreneur starts must have $100 million in sales and go public. These are the unrealistic dreams that we artificially pumped into the veins of the start-up entrepreneurs in the 1990s....Plenty of wonderful companies never get beyond a few million dollars in sales. The owners of these businesses can live very financially successful and happy lives....Our dreams should be downsized to match what will make us happily successful. How do you right-size your dream? What will it take for you to feel like you have succeeded with your business? These individual benchmarks are important for you to find fulfillment in running your own business." "You Need To Be A Little Bit Crazy: The Truth About Starting And Growing Your Business" is realistic about the psychological ups and downs of running a business and the issues entrepreneurs face. Some of my favorite observations include: * "Your network is your life." While Moltz says that the business world is indifferent to your plight, your team members-family, friends, mentors-do care. So, you're not completely alone! Moltz says you should review your contact list every few months and contact people you haven't been in touch with for awhile. He says you need to meet face-to-face to cement relationships and that you must be proactive and take the initiative to get what you want from a relationship. * Work with people who you can trust and who you've worked with successfully in the past. Moltz says, "I could sell chairs if I were doing it with people I respected...who you are in business with is more important than what business you are in." * Don't look for the next big thing, whether it's the Internet, wireless technology, or nanotechnology. Moltz says, "Go out and find pain points for prospective customers that they will pay money to fix." * You don't know whether or not you'll be successful until you try to sell your idea to customers. Moltz says, "Primarily, I tell entrepreneurs to think for a short period of time, make a decision, and then do. The market will teach you more than you can ever learn from planning." "You Need To Be A Little Bit Craz

Most of the entrepreneurs I've met are looking for a magic bullet. They are searching for A "Top Ten List" for Business Success. Moltz is here to tell you that there isn't any such list and you just need to keep plugging away, slowly but surely. There are no short cuts and even a few hundred million in VC money is no guarantee of future riches. I must admit, I was pretty depressed when I finished You Need to Be a Little Crazy. I seriously thought about going out and getting a job, because honestly, I was looking for a way to make some great money by running my own business. I did some long, hard soul searching about my life and my business because of this book. Now, several months later, I am really grateful to have such an honest, realistic guide, because I know I am on the right track. Turns out that my goal in life is to never have to work for anyone else again. I don't need that much money, I just need my freedom and I'm willing to take the emotional roller coaster ride that goes along with it. What makes this a great book is Moltz's willingness to reveal the ugly dark side of business. You will get sick, your partners will throw you out of your own company, and you might even FAIL. Failure is such a dirty word that most of the books I read on this subject don't even MENTION it, unless it's to say, "Failure isn't an option." (Over 500,000 business closed in 2000, so it must be an option for quite a few people!) One of my favorite chapters is called "Networking is Not a Verb; Take This Card and Shove It" and it's all about the importance of knowing how to network properly. I go to so many networking events where a stranger pushes their business card in my face and says, "Let me know if you hear of any business for me." Of course, as Moltz points out, networking is all about building relationships and a 2 minute conversation at a crowded networking event can hardly qualify as a solid relationship. It's much better to spend that time getting to know about the person and what he or she is doing and then wait to see if there is a chance for you to do business together in the future. I could go on and on and but this is the type of book you should read, let it sink in for a few weeks or months and then go back to. There are a lot of simple yet very powerful ideas in this book, most pertaining to the real world daily grind of running your own business. Being an entrepreneur isn't for the faint of heard and this book isn't either. It's required reading for those who are serious about doing whatever it takes to grow your own business and especially for those who have survived failure before and are ready to dust themselves off and get back up on the horse again.