Doug Richard, Founder of School for Startups
Doug Richard's School for Startups, together with O2, has just published the Build Your Business Now Toolkit written by Doug Richard, serial entrepreneur and original Dragons Den Investor. This guide, available for free to those who enroll in most School for Startup's courses, can be purchased by anyone at http://www.SchoolforStartups.co.uk.
Speaking about the book, Richard said "School for Startups delivers accelerated courses designed to get new business owners up to speed fast. The Build Your Business Now Toolkit is our text book for our Start Here! Starting & Growing a Successful Business course. It is the foundation for all the courses we teach because it describes how to build the core components of a sustainable business. Over the years I've become something of a connoisseur. I must confess, I like concise illustrated books best. Olgivy's On Advertising, Caples' Tested Advertising Methods, Lakoff's Don't Think of An Elephant are great books because they get to the point. Our toolkit follows their fine example."
The book has several remarkable features:
It is short.
It is illustrated.
It is available for download.
It gives entrepreneurs a step-by-step pragmatic guide to evaluating any business opportunity.
It teaches entrepreneurs how to construct a solid business model quickly
It details exactly how to create an inexpensive, quick to launch, sales-effective website
It describes how to launch an in-bound Internet-enabled marketing campaign
It provides explicit guidance in how to build a business that, once launched, will be attractive to external funders
Topics covered in the book include:
How to Use This Toolkit to Start Your Business
20 Questions You Should Answer Before You Start your Business
Product Design Worksheets
Public Relations, Marketing & Sales Worksheets
Website Checklist & Resource List
Target Market Worksheets
Industry Analysis Worksheet
How to Hire the Right People
Choosing a Corporate Structure
Dealing with the Government
Building to Grow
Preparing Your Business to Accept Outside Funding
For more information about Doug Richard's Build Your Business Now toolkit, visit www.schoolforstartups.co.uk or follow School for Startups on Twitter @s4s.
About Doug Richard
Doug Richard is a successful entrepreneur with 25 years’ experience in the development and leadership of technology and software ventures, Doug featured in the first two TV series of Dragon’s Den. He is the co founder of the Cambridge Angels and was Chairman of the Conservative Party Small Business Task Force. Between 1996 and 2000 Doug was President and CEO of Micrografx, a US publicly quoted software company. Prior to that he also founded and subsequently sold two other companies: Visual Software and ITAL Computers. Doug holds a BA in Psychology from University of California at Berkeley and a Juris Doctor at the school of Law, University of California at Los Angeles. In 2006 Doug was an Honorary Recipient of The Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion. In 2007, Doug became a fellow of the RSA. In 2009 Doug received an honorary Doctorate from the University of Essex for his contributions to entrepreneurship. In 2008, after teaching a one-day class in entrepreneurship, Doug decided to found, School for Startups, an enterprise dedicated to helping people start better, more profitable, businesses. Since 2008 he has taught thousands in face to face and online classes across the UK. He is an angel investor and sits on the boards of Pearl Software, Love2Scoot, and is co-founder of WaveCastPro.
About O2 UK
Telefónica O2 UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with 20.7 million mobile customers and 457,000 fixed broadband customers as of 30 June 2009. Telefónica O2 UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc which is a business division of Telefónica S.A. and which owns O2 in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 46 million customers.O2’
http://www.O2.co.uk.
Contact:
Nicola Coleman
School for Start-Ups
Wellington House, East Road
Cambridge
CB1 1BH
+44 (0) 7702 313 226
www.schoolforstartups.co.uk
info@schoolforstartups.co.uk
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
