Reddit reviews Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup

Disciplined Entrepreneurship is a step-by-step guide to starting a business and here's a [PDF summary] (http://www.disciplinedentrepreneurship.com/downloads/Disciplined_Entrepreneurship_Poster_Aulet.pdf)

Besides Lean startup, I would go for:

Business Model Generation - to layout your ideas first and have a feeling of your to be business model (on their site you can get a sneak peek for free https://strategyzer.com/books/business-model-generation)

The startup owner's manual, from Steve Blank (https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Step-Step-Building-Company/dp/0984999302)

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: (https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284)


good luck

Hey,

I'm kind of on the same boat as you (starting a software/media company with strong technical skills and some concern for the business side of things)

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Few things I've learned and realized these past few years of coding and trying to make my side-projects into businesses:

- Create a high-level overview / design doc based on these principles to align your vision, technical requirements and business objectives.

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/disciplined-entrepreneurship-24/9781118692288/images/p01-f001.jpg (taken for an MIT entrepreneurship course taught by Bill Aulet. I highly recommend you buy his book: https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284)

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- Learn how to create an effective marketing plan including an end-user profile, persona, market research, advertising on Youtube, Google Ads and Instagram/Facebook, Google Analytics, re-targeting with custom audiences, creating funnels in Google Analytics to see what parts of your app may be causing churn. Here's a good course for this: https://www.udemy.com/learn-digital-marketing-course/ (does not include churn detecting with funnels in GA, you can find more about this on youtube)

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- For everything else there's Slidebean's CEO, FounderHub and Patrick from Valuetainment to help you out tremendously:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz9n-2W33WY&list=PLnhdsL4kFmVYMNq6F8k8UiFkc6fwIdk3o

- https://founderhub.io/

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB442EchOTY

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfLLcqC-D7Y

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- On the technical side of things, I recommend you start with a stack that's easy to work with, can scale without significant effort on your part / without growing your team, and ultimately that gets you to an MVP as fast as possible with minimal trade-offs. For this I recommend Firebase and Cloud Functions to get you up and running quickly without worrying about making an entire API or running servers.

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Most important of all, DO NOT build a monolithic app thinking that every feature you're building will be something your users will enjoy or that what you'll build may useful in the future. Your goal is to build the most minimal version of your key value proposition. From there, establish an effective means of communicating with beta testers / first customers to determine what features to build out. Think of your product as a psychology / design experiment. You need to establish a baseline problem / solution / theory. Then test that theory through small iterations of changes with QA processes / feedback loops to measure the impact of these changes. Eventually you'll have a product that's centered around your user / problem and not your idea of what's best for them (which is rarely ever going to be perfect). Check out Jobs Theory for a better grasp on how to predict and understand your customer's needs: https://medium.com/frameplay/pt-3-defining-the-job-in-jobs-to-be-done-838087696490

I also recommend looking at successful competitors as their platforms have undergone this extensive process of understanding their customer needs. Don't be afraid to emulate what's successful in the market in terms of design, business model and value propositions / mission. Look at their growth over time and old versions of their site with Wayback machine to get a feel for how they re-aligned their vision to target their customer's true needs.

You'll find an infinite amount of fragmented resources for your question. I found one book that centralizes and summarizes that information into a process. Disciplined Entrepreneurship. https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284. If you're serious about succeeding, pick up this book and follow the steps.

check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284

This is the best book I’ve read on it. https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284

Edit: Whoops just reread your post. This is more hands on but the first part is about the mind set. Though it’s not really the strong point of the book so I’d reckon there’s other books out there. I haven’t read Zero to One but I’ve heard good things. It sounds more like what you’re looking for.

I don't know exactly how you put your ideas on paper, but I suggest putting it into a framework to better assess whether it can work. Business canvas model is a strong tool for that purpose. Not only you need to fill out all the blanks in the model, you need to make sure they create a feasible, coherent plan when standing together. It also eliminates too-visionary things that may sound pretty cool but not really needed when you first start build up your business.

I also suggest you spend time reading Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet. It will give you very clear instruction on how to proceed from an idea to a fully-grown company.

Good luck!

There are a lot of books out there and some of them are pretty heavy duty. The Startup Owners Manual is, as it describes, a manual. I've found this book lighter weight and easy to digest. Disciplined Entrepreneurship

Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet

The approach outlined in this book is a large part of why MIT is known for creating successful startups.

https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284

To hell with the Career! Identify a problem you learned in the years you have put in so far, design a solution and build it up while helping your son grow too!

The ugly truth is - careers are an illusion used to convince people to use up their most precious years. So they can retire at 70, die a few years later with no time to use the money they saved.

Please do not look at this change as a negative thing! Join a group of entrepreneurs (real ones - not some MLM bs), learn how to a) find a problem to solve, b) create a solution c) listen to your customers d) maintain control.

Takes about three years to take a viable idea to reality - your son will still be young, and you will not have missed the chance to spend time with him. And if you succeed, you'll make more money than your husband :D

Surround yourself with people who do the things you need to succeed with your new focus

Evidence:

https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284

https://www.amazon.com/UNSCRIPTED-Life-Liberty-Pursuit-Entrepreneurship/dp/0984358161

https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-Wealth-Lifetime/dp/0984358102

https://www.startupschool.org

Stay-At-Home Parenting is not a prison sentence! It is an opportunity to break free!

Read stories of success, surround yourself with cheesy inspiration to keep moving forward. Whatever it takes - it's a process, start now and make this your "Eff this! I want a second house in the Cayman Islands" moment.

Write down your dreams, how much they cost, list the steps you need to obtain that money, and put dates on them. Then, go!

And good luck! You will fail at least once - regroup and do it again.

Unlike most things in life where one bad apple spoils the bunch - with entrepreneurship, one good crop feeds you for life.