2008-05-01 Plenty of good ideas

How they started How 30 good ideas became great businesses BY David Lester

I devour business books but this one looks like a cut an paste job. It is trying to appeal to a large audience but it is set out like a reference book.

A good business book should mix facts with anecdotes and personal stories. It claims that their criteria for choosing was they were started by individuals, they are successful and they are a household name. Perhaps I hadn't been paying attention but they were a few I had not heard of . Out of 30 there were nineteen I had really heard of.

The good ones have been well covered elsewhere such as Dyson, Friends Reunited and Moneysupermarket .com.

People who think about starting businesses but ever get round to it cite two reasons ! I need a good idea 2 someone will steal my good idea. Perhaps there are no new ideas just variations on a theme. Even modern phenomena like Bebo never claimed to be the first just one of the more successful. Very rarely if ever does someone come up with a world beating new idea. even Dyson was just developing a better vacuum cleaner.

Another reviewer has commented on the section on what we can learn from these businesses as a group? that is 1 The X Factor 2 Minimal personal reward financially 4 Do what it says on the tin 5 Keep it simple 6 Work hard than you might think possible 7 Kept trying and believing 8 Who needs money? 8 Ambition 9 So what?

Can I make a plea for business book writers and journalist to stop telling us that X ! Quit the rat race" to start his own business. It is rubbish and boring.

Maybe a book for people who do not read the business pages but there are better books out there on ideas and how to start your own business. Business appears to have become the new Rock and Roll but on The Apprentice we see it is a lot harder than you think. Perfectly bright intelligent hard working people do not seem to be able to get it right.

They are uplifting stories but like the apprentices you should try just a basic business to start with to see if you have the staying power. The vast majority of the population will not make it in business because they are not hard working enough, do not have enough ambition and have an inability to work consistently every day.

A reasonable enough book but it did not inspire me to read it from cover to cover. I dipped into the ones that I liked.