This book offers the prospective entrepreneur some idea about how to collect his building blocks and offers the up-and -running entrepreneur some glue to hold them all together.

Publisher Comments

Categories:  Bankruptcy & Insolvency | Banking & Finance Of Interest: An Entrepreneurial History of the United States

An interesting and informative source for the entrepreneur and the would-be entrepreneur, this book is a reprint of a highly acclaimed 1990 book. A new preface and a newly added epilogue bring the insightful teachings of the book to a current level of usefulness. While the basic demands for becoming an entrepreneur remain the same, the environment in which an entrepreneur needs to operate has changed. This book is a veritable treasure trove of invaluable information for anyone seeking to run a company on his own, particularly if the goal is to build a rapid-growth company by exploiting some new technological or marketing data.

Review by Henry Berry
>From Turnarounds and Workouts, October 15, 2003:

Entrepreneurs have to wear many hats--CEO, CFO, marketing manager, copywriter, bookkeeper, secretary, and at times delivery boy or girl.  Baty and Blake cover all of these.  In one section, they divide the many different positions and tasks the entrepreneur has to fulfill, especially in the early stages of a business, into the general categories of entrepreneurs and custodians.  "Entrepreneurial tasks involve the setting up, planning, and motivational activities of the firm."  This uniquely entrepreneurial activity includes such business matters as initiating market research, setting budgets, and finding the right banker.  Custodial tasks, on the other hand, include tracking budget expenditures, buying materials and supplies, supervising production or services, and the like.

"As a rule, entrepreneurial tasks are much less delegable than are custodial tasks."  The authors make this fundamental distinction so that the entrepreneur will understand the different work necessary during the start-up or early phases of a business, and not become so absorbed by custodial tasks that the business suffers from losing the spark most important to it.  This distinction is important for the entrepreneur to keep in mind in order to understand what kinds of work to delegate if the business is to remain on a sound footing and to grow properly.  If the reader derives nothing else from this book than this important fundamental distinction between entrepreneurial and custodial tasks, Baty and Blake's book will have proved valuable.  The distinction is useful in organizing the entrepreneur's frame of mind, planning, leadership and management.

But the authors offer much more than this.  Both authors are steeped in entrepreneurial enterprises.  Baty has been involved in founding, running, and financing entrepreneurial businesses, including three high-tech firm, and has taught entrepreneurship at MIT and Northeastern University.  Blake has worked with budding entrepreneurs in Russia, and has other international experience in the field.  Their treatment of every conceivable topic of interest to the entrepreneur is imbued with the right amount of overview, concrete information , tips, and intangible considerations such as having the right attitude even for routine but necessary tasks, or establishing quality personal relationships with key players such as employees, bankers, and lawyers.

The authors' understanding of the personality of the entrepreneur comes through in their treatment of each topic.  While recognizing that entrepreneurs may vary from doctors, lawyers, and others who may work alone to inventors and engineers who may build large companies from their ideas, Baty and Blake understand that what ties them all together is the desire for independence, control of their own destiny, and a good income.  The authors understand, too, the enthusiasm for the entrepreneur for his work, and the commitment and hopes entailed in entrepreneurship.  This understanding informs the subjects of the book. But the authors also understand the limitations of the nature of the entrepreneur, and they deal with these at appropriate points.  The very qualities contributing to an entrepreneur's creation of a successful business usually work against him when it comes to day-to-day management and the routine of sustaining an established business.  Thus, the authors also cover how entrepreneurs can optimally leave their business if and when it becomes necessary.

Mr. Baty is a partner and founder of Zero Stage Capital and chairman of Navigator Technology Ventures.  Mr. Blake is a senior consultant for Jaako Poyry Management Consulting.

From Nightingale's Healthcare News,  November 2007

Entrepreneurs vary from doctors, lawyers, and others who may work alone to inventors and engineers who may build large companies from their ideas. What ties them all together, however, is the desire for independence, control of their destiny, and a good income.  Samuel Johnson, presiding at the sale of a London brewery, expressed it well: “We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”  

Entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs seeking the potentiality of growing rich should start by reading Entrepreneurship: Back to Basics.  The book is written by two practitioners of the art and science of spinning ideas into profit-making ventures.  Gordon Baty has started, managed, merged, sold, financed, studied, and advised entrepreneurial ventures, including a succession of high-tech firms.  He has also taught entrepreneurship at MIT and Northeastern University.  Michael Blake worked closely with budding entrepreneurs in the Soviet Union during that country’s economic transformation.  He has also assisted many others in formulating business plans and approaching bankers and venture capitalists.

With their background, Baty and Blake understand better than anyone the enthusiasm of the entrepreneur for his work, and the commitment and hopes entailed in entrepreneurship.  More importantly, they understand the basic demands for becoming an entrepreneur, which continue to be the same, although the environment in which the entrepreneur operates is constantly changing.  Nonetheless, the very qualities contributing to an entrepreneur’s creation of a successful business usually work against him when it comes to day-to-day management and the routine of sustaining an established business.  Thus, the authors also cover how entrepreneurs can optimally leave their businesses if and when it becomes necessary.

Entrepreneurs have to wear many hats – CEO, CFO, marketing manager, copywriter, bookkeeper, secretary, and at times delivery boy or girl. Baty and Blake cover all of these.  In one section, they divide the many different positions and tasks the entrepreneur has to fulfill, especially in the early stages of a business, into the general categories of entrepreneurs and custodians.  “Entrepreneurial tasks involve the setting up, planning, and motivational activities of the firm.”  This uniquely entrepreneurial activity includes such business matters as initiating market research, setting budgets, and finding the right banker.  Custodial tasks, on the other hand, include tracking budget expenditures, buying materials and supplies, supervising production or services, and the like.

“As a rule, entrepreneurial tasks are much less delegable than are custodial tasks.”  The authors make this fundamental distinction so that the entrepreneur will understand the different work necessary during the start-up or early phases of a business, and not become so absorbed by custodial tasks that the business suffers from losing the spark most important to it.  This distinction is important for the entrepreneur to keep in mind in order to understand what kinds of work to delegate if the business is to remain on a sound footing and to grow properly.  If the reader derives nothing else from this book than this important fundamental distinction between entrepreneurial and custodial tasks, Baty and Blake’s book will have provide valuable.  The distinction is useful in organizing the entrepreneur’s frame of mind, planning, leadership, and management.

Baty’s and Blake’s address every conceivable topic of interest to the entrepreneur.  A sampling of the chapters – “Initial Financing,” “Public or Private: What’s the Difference?” “The business Plan,”  Shopping and Negotiating,” “Accounting – Inside and Out,” “Care and Feeding of Bankers,” “Competitors and Wht To Do About them,” Strategic Partnering,” Lawyers and Their Uses,” Millstones and Other Fixed Assets,” – exemplifies the breadth of their book’s coverage.  Nonetheless, the book gets to the point, appreciative of the fact that, for entrepreneurs, time is money.  Readers will find that Entrepreneurship: Back to Basics is imbued with the right amount of overview, concrete information, tips, and intangible considerations such as having the right attitude even for routine but necessary tasks, or establishing quality personal relationships with key players such as employees, bankers, and lawyers.

Gordon Baty is a partner and founder of Zero Stage Capital and chairman of Navigator Technology Ventures.  Michael Blake is a senior consultant for Jaako Poyry Management Consulting. 

Gordon Baty practices, preaches, and promotes entrepreneurship. Professionally, he has occupied every seat around the table. He has run three venture-capital financed start-ups; has sat on twenty boards; has been a private investor in several; and has been an institutional investor in many more. He has also taught entrepreneurship at the university level, has written extensively about it, venture capital, and the management of innovation. Baty has advised government and university officials on entrepreneurship, seed capital, and the commercialization of technology. He holds BS, MS, PhD degrees from MIT. Photo taken from Zero Stage website.

Michael S. Blake has been an active participant at all stages of the entrepreneurial process throughout his career. During most of the 1990s, he worked closely with fledgling entrepreneurs in the new market of the former Soviet Union. He had delivered seminars to teach entrepreneurs how to formulate a Western-style business plan and to approach venture investors. He has assisted several participants to raise capital to start and grow their own businesses. Mr. Blake has worked for an Israeli merchant bank that invested and raised capital for Israeli and North American technology ventures. He is presently a Senior consultant for Jaako Poyry Management Consulting, where he focuses on supporting merger and acquisition activities in the forestry and paper industries. Mr. Blake is a CFA Charterholder and holds a BA from Franklin & Marshall College and an MBA from Georgetown University.

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