Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.
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Demonstrating the entrepreneurial skills that are needed to make a business soar, Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. is an aspirational business guide.
Thorough and personable, entrepreneur Colin C. Campbell’s guide to business building Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. proposes an adaptable, four-step system to bringing nascent companies to maturity.
Synthesizing knowledge developed over decades of experience, the book addresses myriad details, granular and otherwise, that come into play for career entrepreneurs. Its four overarching sections are subdivided into aspects of business development, including a business’s story, people, money, and system. With advice ranging from how to entice talent to join a resource-poor startup to the negotiating tactics that lawyers employ during a sale proceeding, the book reaches across disciplines and bodies of knowledge to depict the skills that an entrepreneur needs and the situations they will encounter.
Internally, the chapters transition between their specific topics with logic, bringing all together at last to form a cohesive whole. For example, the chapter on pitching investors divides emotion, problem-solving potential, and audience into three distinct categories that are later linked together with clarity. And the book’s use of bold print and bullet points makes its key points clearer and more actionable.
There’s an undeniable personal element to the text, whose four major topics are prefaced with introductions contextualizing and explaining their importance in Campbell’s work life (and in the bigger picture of general entrepreneurship). Further, stories from Campbell’s own business ventures are used to complement the book’s advice. There’s coverage of his decision to shutter a startup at the cost of $50,000 when the company stopped keeping up with its macro stage goals; this is juxtaposed to the tale of Campbell’s first windfall after selling a company. Both kinds of narratives are designed to demonstrate the entrepreneurial skills that the book names in action.
Quotes and pithy phrases are scattered throughout the text, making its work more memorable, as where the book notes that “you have to inspect what you expect” in connection to the example of diagnosing the source of a company’s misfortune. This observation dovetails with Campbell’s explanation of how a hasty hiring process and the absence of a system for handling misbehaving employees contributed to one company’s demise. And the prose makes engaging use of metaphors drawing on popular media and personal experiences, too.
A persuasive entrepreneurial guide, Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. draws on extensive business experience to illuminate a bevy of aspects of organizational development.
Reviewed by
Willem Marx
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
