Small Business for Dummies, 2nd Edition

By: Eric Tyson

Narrated by: Brett Barry

Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's Summary

Take control of your future and make the leap from employee to entrepreneur with this enterprising guide. From drafting a business plan to managing costs, you'll profit from expert advice and real-world examples that cover every aspect of building your own business.

Get smart: explore our full list of ...for Dummies titles.

©2003 Eric Tyson and Jim Schell (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic Reviews

"No one should try to start a business without this book." (Hattie Bryant, creator of the PBS series Small Business 2000)

Mostly useless...

There were 1 or 2 bits of good information in here, which may make it worth the relatively low price, but overall I was pretty unhappy with the content. It seemed more like an hour-and-a-half plug for the physical book, rather than a book unto itself. What content there was, was so general as to be almost entirely useless.

Keeping them Dumb

I was expecting to get some good information and a reality check out of this book. It has been deleted off of my MP3 Player because this is all information that I have firmly planted in my mind from other resources what they are teaching and the reality check is at the expense of encouragement, a positive attitude, or feeling good in general. I turn this Audio Book feeling worse then when I started usually. My recommendation to small business owners is go to your local Small Business Development Center. Their services are free and they are more encouraging then this audio book.

Very disappointed, not enough content

This book was highly recommended by a good friend and successful small business owner, however I found it sorely lacking in detail. Perhaps there is more in the hard copy.

it was okay

there was a handful of good advice. However, it seemed to lack somethhing...it consisted mostly anecdotal or obvious tips..

too much storytelling little on practical advice.

not good for people looking for practical advice on policies and procedures to follow those trying to develop the operations plan

General yet helpful

Just enough general information to wet my appetite. I look to be better at managing my home based business and this book did provide some great tips to point me in the direction of continued growth.

Re-read

so much information I'm going to listen again, definitely good info. I recommend to everyone

way to short

this didn't cover any of the things an existing small business owner can use. It did mention SBA. A good website for overall help

Incomplete, and a MUCH newer edition is available

In an effort to find highly-rated small business books that aren't full of fake 5-star reviews, I typed "small business" into the search and this book came up as one of the first results. I saw that it was from 2003 and that the runtime was less than 4 hours, but anyone exploring this genre knows that runtime and recency do not always attest to a book's quality, and I remember the "for dummies" series fondly from my high school days - I figured I'd give it a shot.

The reason this audio book is so short is that it ends abruptly in Chapter 3 and has no content beyond that. Was this some kind of "free demo" book that accidentally got flagged as abridged? And the reason this book is so old is not because they nailed it so well the first time that it didn't need an update. This is the 2nd edition, and as of the writing of this review, the book has been updated three more times.

This book is not "abridged," it's straight up incomplete. If you're looking for something that really condenses the content to 4 hours, keep looking. I'm going to spend my time and money on the 18-hour-long 5th edition that I should have bought to begin with, and I would have bought if it had been a result when I searched!

One of the best I've listened to so far.

I've listened to many entrepreneur books so far, and this is one of the best. it could have mentioned less about buying an existing business, however, all the information was concise and straight to the point which is uncommon in entrepreneurial books it seems.