Simple rules for entrepreneurs

I've recently stumbled on a good book 66 Simple Rules for Entrepreneurs: A Roadmap for Improved Performance worth sharing.

It covers most common questions entrepreneurs have in a very succinct and direct way, presented as "simple rules."

The "rules" are organised in several themes:

Simple Rules for Recognizing Opportunities

• When Others Constrain Your Career, Look for an Entrepreneurial Opportunity
• Invest Effort to Build Expertise from Your Experience
• Don’t Be Fooled by Your Experience
• Use Entrepreneurship as a Channel to Express Yourself
• To Design Value, Look for Disruptions (in Users and Your Environment)
• Motivate Creativity to Generate Opportunities
• Adopt an Entrepreneurial Mindset to Learn and Generate New Things

Simple Rules for Market Selection and Entry

• Identify a Broad Opportunity Set from Which to Choose the “Best” One
• Think Like a Scientist to Generate Novel Business Models or Opportunities
• With Resource Constraints, Embrace the Lean Startup Approach
• Create, Use, and Adapt a Community of Inquiry to Evaluate and Co-construct an Opportunity
• If Your Opportunity Does Not Work Out, Pivot

Simple Rules for Entrepreneurial Decision-Making

• Entry Decisions Are Complex, so Time Them Right
• If You Think You Do Not Have Implicit Biases, You Are Probably Wrong (We All Do), so Set Up Procedures to Circumvent Them
• Reduce Your Overconfidence in Making Predictions
• While Slack is Nice, Necessity Can Be the Mother of Innovation
• When You Lack Information to Make Decisions, Turn to What You Have at Hand
• If You Want to Capture Fleeting Opportunities, Then Speed up Your Decision-Making
• Decision Analysis Will Only Get You so Far; Tap into Your Inner Child to Ask Questions

Simple Rules for Developing Plans and Strategies

• Reflect on Your Personal Goals When Setting an Entrepreneurial Strategy
• Think About Your Venture’s Future and Your Future in It
• When Facing Uncertainty, Look for Ways to Capitalize on Learning (Stage Gates Won’t Cut It)
• Simplify Your Rules as the Environment Becomes More Complex and Dynamic
• Be Aware of and Minimize Your Venture’s Vulnerabilities
• Anticipate and Avoid (or Prepare for) Potential Threats
• Meetings Can Help Make Effective Transitions from One Project to the Next
• Avoid Firefighting Mode to Improve Long-Run Performance

Simple Rules for Engaging External Stakeholders

• Build a Circle of Trusted Advisors and Listen to Them
• Don’t Journey Alone; Involve Others Because Entrepreneurship Needs to Be a Social Endeavor
• When It Comes to Building Relationships, Don’t Always Go for What Is Easy and Natural
• Engage Others in Dialogue Like a “Good” Professor Does in a Case Discussion
• Emphasize Inquiry with Others (Instead of Advocacy) for Generating Creative and Innovative Outcomes
• To Access Resources, Learn How to Tell a Good Story
• Know Your Worth and Communicate It to Others for Effective Pricing
• Ask for Help.

Simple Rules for Working with Cofounders

• Don’t Be a Fool, Don’t Rush in
• Make Sure to Invest Time in Setting up Your Founding Team
• If You Want Your Founding Team to Function Well, Nurture It
• Make Sure Your Team Can Manage Team Issues
• Your Team May Not Stay Together, but a Breakup Doesn’t Have to Be a Disaster

Simple Rules for Managing Employees

• Consider the People You Can Attract to Your Startup
• You Will Shape Your Employees, but They Will also Shape You
• Build a Culture in Which Your Employees Thrive
• If You Want to Be Entrepreneurial, You Need to Be a Failure-Tolerant Leader

Simple Rules for Growing Your Venture

• Growth Is a Challenging Journey; Be Well Prepared
• Transform Your Venture Multiple Times
• Build Your Cultural Intelligence to Enter Foreign Markets
• To Make Your Organization Entrepreneurial, Enhance Its Capacity to Learn
• Formalize Some of Your Personality to Build Your Venture’s Culture

Simple Rules for Riding the Emotional Roller Coaster

• Don’t Ignore Your Negative Emotions
• Running a Venture Can Be Exhausting, So Make Sure You Manage Your Entrepreneurial Energy Right
• Follow Your Entrepreneurial Passion
• Build Your Emotional Intelligence
• Pursue Moderate Stress at Work to Enhance Life
• Build Your Entrepreneurial Team’s Emotional Intelligence to Enhance Its Performance

Simples Rules for Developing the Social Aspects of Your Venture

• Do Amazing Things with Your Venture to Help Those Suffering
• Align Your Motivation with the Type of Venture You Want to Build
• Be Sensitive to the Needs of Your Venture Members
• Don’t Burnout in Pursuing Your Venture’s Social Mission

Simple Rules for Managing Mistakes and Failures

• To Be Successful, You Need to Be Prepared for and Manage Failure
• Yes, You Can Learn More from Your Failures than Your Successes, but It Can Be More Challenging than You Think
• You Cannot Choose to Be Error Free; You Need to Choose Which Error You Will Regret Less
• Prepare for Crises Because They Will Probably Happen (You Just Don’t Know What or When)
• If You Caused a Mistake that Was a Core Violation of Your Entrepreneurial Venture and Negatively Impacts Others, Then You Better Make a Good Apology

Simple Rules for Exiting Your Entrepreneurial Venture

• If You Want to End Your Entrepreneurial Journey, Consider Multiple Possibilities
• To Keep Your Venture Alive After Exit, Manage the Succession Process Right

You can get the book for free from Springer.

Hundred pages worth reading!