The Entrepreneur's Toolkit

By: Michael Goldsby, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Michael Goldsby

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's Summary

This course teaches you how to be an entrepreneur and how to think like one - skills that are essential whether you are starting a business, expanding an existing business, boosting your career as an employee, pursuing a social cause, or seeking to increase your impact as a teacher, coach, minister, or other professional. Packed with fascinating lessons from legendary entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and Henry Ford, these 24 lectures are entertaining as well as practical.

You begin by investigating what makes a good business idea. Then you learn how to turn that idea into a successful enterprise by defining the market and the customers you will serve, attracting backers, building your brand, and growing your venture to the point where you can sell it, if you want, for an impressive profit.

Topics covered include market research, choosing a business structure, the all-important business plan, financial statements, running a home office, family businesses, franchises, intellectual property, employee and customer relations, and entrepreneurial exhaustion. Professor Goldsby also discusses different entrepreneurial styles, and he looks ahead to your career options after you succeed and are ready to try another challenge. He notes that entrepreneurs play an indispensible role in society: they are the ones who find problems, recognize the opportunities in those problems, then fix them and make the world a better place.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2014 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2014 The Great Courses

Smart first half, lacking and slow in the second.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

If not for the ability to speed the audio up 2x speed, I don't think I would have been able to put up with the reader's many awkward pauses and slow pronunciations.

Was The Entrepreneur's Toolkit worth the listening time?

If you highly value your time, I would only recommend the first half of this lecture at 2x the speed. Please read my additional comments below for a more detailed explanation as to why I've come to this conclusion.

Any additional comments?

There's a wealth of knowledge in this lecture, but most of that wealth is exposed in the first half of this book. The second half - although still relevant - pertains to basic business 101 and focuses on after-the-fact and day-to-day running of your start-up (which, i'd actually recommend taking a business and financial accounting course to prepare you for starting a business). With drawn out over-explanation of concepts and sentences, the second half of Professor Goldsby's lecture feels more like a "Business for Dummies" entry than a great lecture.

In the first half, the reader divulges valuable insights about idea cultivation, investor expectations, and start-up culture which is directly relevant today. For listeners like myself, who have taken at least one business course, I can only recommend the first half of this lecture.

Amazing toolkit.

The narration is perfect. he stumbles is words maybe 5 times.
I almost did not buy thus book because of the prevoius review. I am glad i did not listen to that review.

Amazing value in this book. I realy enjoyed it.
will listen to this book again.

Thinking Persons Guide to a Entrepreneurial Life

This course is good food for thought but also a great motivator. It tells you what you need to know, to do and how to go about it to the entrepreneur goal of yours. It gives you the facts and benefits as well as the pitfalls and necessaries you kneed to make it happen. Even though it is US based, any budding entrepreneur would find this course great. Another great course and well worth the time and money invested in it.

Practical and Engaging

Dr. Michael Goldsby does an excellent job explaining the step-by-step processes to follow in order to start and grow a business. This lecture series was very practical and engaging. Dr. Goldsby does a great job using stories to illustrate his principles, both from his life, but also from the lives of great entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney. Anyone thinking about starting their own business would do well to listen to the series first. Doing so will help them undoubtedly avoid becoming one of the 70% of the business start-ups that fail within the first few years. This would also be an excellent introductory course for anyone who is considering going for their MBA. In fact, perhaps The Great Courses should consider developing a full series of courses for people who would like pursue a MBA level of education, but are not concerned with getting an actual degree. I think Dr. Goldsby would be a great person to tap for a project like that.

Very helpful in developing my business plan

I am exploring a consulting business and through this course determined certain businesses that are not my target market that I had originally thought would be.

This book is the real deal

I saw a lot of people commenting that this guy's reading pace was bad and unnatural. I would agree that his style is a bit odd, but it did not bother me, want to know why? Cause this guy is giving you actual information. For the last few months I've been buying books about finding success and most of those books were people saying "you have to be committed, hard working, be positive ....". Listen, that's great for 5 min, but not for a book. I want to know what I SHOULD be doing. I often think what it would be like to have a millionaire as a mentor. Someone who has made many businesses - someone with a lot of advice to offer. I doubt they will say things like " you have to work hard, you have to try your best, you can do this, you can achieve anything " ..... I"m sure they would offer more advice like " you might wanna do this, to avoid this happeneing, in that case do this..." Imagine you purchase a piece of furniture and the instructions tell you to believe in yourself. I do not need that. I need some sort of guideline to build the thing. I understand that in life there is not instruction set for success but atleast share some sort of instruction set!!! Anyway enough of the rant, this book does that. It takes you from idea, to creation, to business. If you have an idea for a product or service, but did not go to business school, or have no one to help you, get this book. It may be boring at times but just focus and getting through, Skip around, go back, etc. Good luck !!!

Excellent tools but too much on headline leaders

This audio book presented a lot of excellent tools in a clear and concise manner. These skills are extremely useful for anyone who is looking to start a business.

My only criticism is that he spent too much time focusing on the top headline-grabbing entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates rather than real world examples that are actually useful. Stories of those famous leaders are presented too often and are idealized so much that they turn into myth. I find more detailed examples of more relatable entrepreneurs to be better for teaching applicable lessons.

Excellent source of info for any business owner!

I have owned my own business for over 16 years, and this with a very helpful book to me even now!

Useful for Americans and non Americans alike.

This course fills its promise. You'll find in it useful tools to help you start your business. Although some lessons are more directed at an American audience, Mr. Goldsby always strives to show the key ideas behind the regulations. After having listened to this course, you'll think twice before starting a venture. You'll probably understand more clearly why it's difficult and what you should keep in mind. But you'll be more convinced than ever that you _can_ do it.

Hard core business mindset and philosophy

Really enjoyed this, as someone who has always had ideas but never took action, this course is definitely something I would revisit time and time again.

Some Useful stuff here

What made the experience of listening to The Entrepreneur's Toolkit the most enjoyable?

A very clear and complete look at business and how to think about your own. it covers a wide range of subjects.

I found it very helpful in planning my own start up business and will probably go back and listen to it more often later.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Entrepreneur's Toolkit?

There's a lot about Steve Jobs.

OK as a starting point

Not great really. Critical business skills for success was a hundred times better and more valuable.

Best Audio book I have heard

This has to be best and my favourite audio book so far. You have to be interested in Entrepreneurship to enjoy it.

Excellent

This was very pragmatic and easy to follow, as-well as being thorough.
Will be listening to this again.

Really in-depth course

Really in-depth course takes you from small start up to the top of your ultimate goal and success. a must for anyone thinking of starting up their own business, Fantastic!

Broad but a little light

I enjoyed this course as it covered pretty much every aspect of starting a business. I would say that it's quite light on a number of subjects, I've also listened to 'Critical Business Skills for Success' which goes into a lot more detail on subject like marketing and strategy. Overall it was worth a listen.

I could not stand the speaker

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Listened to it a little bit before realising the other reviews were right, the speaker is soooo irritating. How do I return this?

Says 'Industry' weird...

Like: in-DUSS-tree.

It's really weird. And off-putting. Maybe he's got a mental block.

Maybe he's a maniac.