The BNH Book Review
“Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup"
by Bill Aulet, 2024/Wiley
$39/349 pages
“Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics” by Paul Cheek
2024/Wiley, $37/270 pages
“Fifteen years ago,” begins author Bill Aulet, “I was asked to lead a core entrepreneurship course at MIT.” He planned on using a comprehensive book on startups, but “there was no such book,” he says, so he wrote one.
This expanded and updated version of “Disciplined Entrepreneurship” begins with a way to understand the mythology, terminology, CEO-level concerns, and mindsets one will need to be successful.
Almost immediately after the preface, Aulet leaps into his step-by-step methodology.
Once you have read and absorbed “Disciplined Entrepreneurship,” move on to “Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics” by Paul Cheek, which picks up where Aulet’s book ends and is more of a get-to-work kind of book, with stages and workbook sidebars.
Cheek takes readers through the next steps, including marketing, understanding advertising, finding a designer, and making sales. He walks readers through the financial aspects of a business, with a nice list of “tools of the trade” and other financial subjects you’ll need to consider as a new CEO.
Think of reading these books as a way to separate the serious entrepreneur from the wanna-be.