Whether you come to this book as an entrepreneurship student, a corporate manager, someone seeking regenerative social change, or a seasoned creator of new ventures, you already know that entrepreneurship is the primary engine of growth, innovation, and financial self-reliance.
What you will discover in this book is that there is a science to entrepreneurship-a shared logic that can be observed in expert entrepreneurs across industries, geographic locations, and time. We call this logic effectuation-which means working with things already within your control to co-create valuable new futures with people who want to work with you.
At the heart of the book you will find the four core principles of effectuation that expert entrepreneurs follow when creating new ventures, products, and markets:
Start with your means
Set affordable loss
Form partnerships
Leverage contingencies
In this book, each of these core principles is explained through cases, stories, thought exercises, and a variety of practical applications.
Presented in the concise, modular, graphical form made popular in previous editions, Effectual Entrepreneurship is perfect both for those seeking to become entrepreneurs, and those already in the thick of things!
A wealth of thought-provoking material, expert advice, and practical techniques resides in these pages and on the accompanying website: www.effectuation.org.
PART I What We Know About Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship
1 Roadmaps, Myths, and the Bahamas
2 Good Ideas Are Everywhere
3 Most Ventures Require Little Startup Capital
4 The Plunge Doesn't Have to Be a Plunge at All
5 Failing as the Way Forward
PART II How (Expert) Entrepreneurs Think
6 Prediction, Risk, and Uncertainty
7 Opportunities Are Created as Well as Discovered
8 Managing Uncertainty Through Control
9 The Effectual Logic of Expert Entrepreneurs
PART III The Nuts and Bolts of Venturing: Effectuation in Action
10 The Bird-in-Hand Principle: Start With What You Have
11 Transforming Means Into Something Valuable
12 The Affordable Loss Principle: Invest Little, Learn a Lot
13 Using Slack for Bootstrap Financing
14 The Crazy Quilt Principle: Form Partnerships
15 Asking Potential Partners to Make Commitments
16 The Lemonade Principle: Leverage Surprise
17 Putting It Together: The Effectuation Process
PART IV I Am an Entrepreneur Now: How Far Can I Go?
18 Ownership, Equity, and Control: Manage Stakeholders
19 Business Plans and Business Models
20 The Venture Grows Up: Create an Entrepreneurial Culture
PART V Applications of Effectuation
21 Brand as Venture Identity: Marketing You
22 Technology: Means, Outcome, or Trap?
23 Social Change and Markets in Human Hope
Conclusion
Overview of "Practically Speaking" Sections
Overview of "Research Roots" Sections
