The Parallel Entrepreneur

How to Start and Run B2B Businesses While Keeping Your Day Job

By: Ryan Buckley

Narrated by: Robert Jennings

Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's Summary

Building a product on the Internet is relatively easy these days. It's the making money part that's hard.

I wrote this book to help you become a parallel entrepreneur faster than I did, and to encourage you to do so while you have the safety net of a day job.

"The Parallel Entrepreneur is to B2B startups as Rich Dad Poor Dad is to real estate. It's a manifesto to entrepreneurs that you don't need to raise venture capital to build a profitable business; that you can be your own boss; that you can control your own destiny - and still be successful. Ryan is one of the few folks who've successfully navigated this path, and in this book he shares his hard-won experience. If you are thinking about starting a business to generate some cash, you owe it to yourself to read The Parallel Entrepreneur." (Jon Miller, CEO of Engagio and co-founder of Marketo)

"The Parallel Entrepreneur is a fantastic resource for anyone who has faced the conundrum of wanting to stay at their current job while starting one or multiple companies in parallel - and my experience at Upwork shows me that a lot of people are trying to do this. Ryan, himself a parallel entrepreneur, describes his best practices as well at those collected from others in a compelling, down-to-earth book that will walk the reader through why and how to become a parallel entrepreneur." (Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Upwork)

©2018 Ryan Buckley (P)2018 Ryan Buckley

Inspiring and Practical

Ryan has done a great job of framing an entrepreneurial model that can run in parallel to your job or as a career. He has done the leg work of providing practical and insightful details to get you started. I wasn’t sure how to get started, but this book answered my questions. Thanks Ryan.

This book puts you on the path to success

As someone who’s done side hustles before and is always looking to generate more income, this book states it cleanly and pretty concisely. At the end of the day it’s about action. Why settle for just one stream of income when you can diversify and have multiple.

Interesting content, lousy audio production

I like how Ryan Buckley takes a somewhat different approach to entrepreneurship than what many in the current startup communities normally do. He's one of the few who acknowledges that you may not really need a partner, and that it's ok to have more than one business running in parallel.

For non-US listeners, it my be worthwhile to point out that the portions of the book that addresses US-specific issues, like taxes, employment, and company legal issues, can be a bit tedious.

Other than that, and the fact that the book sometimes feel a bit unstructured, the content is really good, a fresh breeze in the startup echo-chamber.

Now, for the unfortunate parts. The audio quality and the audio production. Good lord, this is the worst I've ever heard! By far! How can you even create content with such bad (and inconsistent) audio? Recording on an iPhone in your car would yield better quality than this. I'm honestly baffled.

And didn't anyone make a pass-through of the recording before submitting it? A ton of mistakes and do-overs are still in the final product. Again, unbelievable in this day of high-quality tools and equipment.

I'm not sure if I should return this book or not. And if I do, it's solely based on the abysmal audio production. Too bad, with a book that's otherwise interesting.