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Title: High-Tech Ventures: The Guide for Entrepreneurial Success by C. Gordon Bell, John E. McNamara ISBN: 0-201-56321-5 Publisher: Addison Wesley Longman Pub. Date: 01 April, 1991 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Timeless Advice - Highly Recommended
Comment: I read this book years ago shortly after it was first published. I had just worked for a startup which exhibited many of the issues, good and bad, addressed in the book. Gordon Bell was VP of engineering at DEC when they developed the VAX, and his insights into the technical development mind-set are good, even if they are not as poetic as those in "The Soul Of A New Machine" by Tracy Kidder. The Bell-Mason diagnostic is worth the time spent reading the book by itself. The discussion of where a high-tech venture should be at various stages in its development is highly insightful.
I think that "pedantic", as used in another review, is not entirely off the mark - but the insight I gained from this book was well worth it. We have experienced a ludicruous period in high-tech development in the late 1990s - as things return to a more businesslike basis, the approach in this book becomes more appropriate and even vital to survival. If you are considering starting, working at, or investing in a high-tech venture, this book will repay the cost and time spent reading it very, very well.
And I think this will be a timeless classic, much like Graham and Dodd did for value investing. The cases here are certainly dated - the mistakes and things to avoid are timeless.
Rating: 2
Summary: Pedantic, Self-Absorbed and a Waste of Money.
Comment: This book wasn't very good when it was written a decade ago and age hasn't helped it. The authors attempt to apply a scientific method to their analysis of start-ups and potentially succesfull ventures but lack the substance of true quality research. In the end it turns out to be a heuristic that could be summed up in less than a hundred pages if not for the authors' attempting to display their erudition. The book heads downhill when the authors put their "Program" for starting a high tech company in a pseudo-programming format and the book just continues to slide further into triteness.
There are much better books on entrepenuership. Do yourself a favor and get a business book written by businessmen not by engineers who aspire to be philosphers.
Rating: 4
Summary: Must-have reference guide for every high-tech enterpreneur
Comment: After 11 years this book remains a great resource for everyone who evaluates a starup's health or is thinking about starting a business. The book contains a very comprehensive set of really good questions that evaluate the business in every dimention critical to its success. The success is virtually assured if you have the right answers to all of the test questions presented in the book. Great resource for high-tech enterpreneurs, VCs, hires.
Word of caution though. This book isn't really about how to build a successfull business. It's more about how to tell if a given business (or a business decision) is to be successful. Most of the case studies in the book are really annotated examples of falures, as oppose to examples to follow.
Highly recommended.
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