NEW Book Launch! Venture Forward: Lessons from Leaders

Over the next weeks, I’m going to be sharing excerpts and stories from my book, Venture Forward: Lessons from Leaders in this article series. Venture Forward: Lessons from Leaders launched on October 28, 2019, on Amazon, here is the link to buy it! If you want to connect, you can reach me here via email at jkraus@prepare4vc.com or connect with me on social: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter.

Let’s face it: every entrepreneur isn’t the next Mark Zuckerberg and every new business isn’t Uber. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be. Venture Forward is a collection of real-world stories from innovative founders of successful businesses gathered to show new entrepreneurs that they’re not alone in their endeavors and they’re not destined to fail (at least not forever). More so, the book uses examples from under-represented sectors of the business world including female entrepreneurs and those not engulfed in the Silicon Valley scene to show that anyone from any walk of life can be a successful business founder.

“There is this ‘one-size fits all’ mentality on how to build and scale a successful startup. In reality, startups come in many shapes and sizes built from an eclectic group of individuals. Instead of the typical approach of road mapping your company’s creation, the best approach to the startup process is asking yourself, ‘At this stage in my business, what have other entrepreneurs done which has succeeded and what mistakes did they make?’”- Excerpt from Venture Forward introduction

With 15 million Americans identifying as being self-employed, this book was written to help those people grow; to scale their business by learning from the failures and successes of established founders and innovators. Whether you’re looking to start a new business or are trying to propel your current company forward, Venture Forward will show you how to find your most valuable customers, how to raise capital, how to pivot while growing, and so much more.

This isn’t the next “how to succeed in business” book. Instead, I aim to instill hope and passion in gun-shy entrepreneurs, with a goal to help them further the business world with their innovative ideas. If you’ve hit a roadblock in the journey and are looking for some guidance, Venture Forward speaks directly to you.

Are you a female founder tired of trying to be taken seriously?
In this book, you will learn from Laurel Taylor, the founder of FinTech platform FutureFuel on how she launched and built up a startup that signed major customers onto her platform and just raised an $11M series A round. She is a female entrepreneur that ventured forward.

Are you an immigrant founder struggling with adapting your business in the US:
In this book, you will learn from Henrique Dubugras, founder of Brex, the first corporate credit card for startups. As an immigrant entrepreneur, he could not secure personal lines of credit to grow the company, and even though he had $150,000 in the bank from YCombinator, he could not get a corporate credit card. Instead of settling for the status quo, he embraced the opportunity to make a difference and launched the first credit for startups, venturing forward to the Unicorn Club with a $1 Billion+ startup.

Are you a solo founder or non-technical founder?
Marisa Sergi started RedHead Wines as a solo founder entering her modern and enticing wine labels into business plan competitions in college. She won every competition she entered and has built a business through partnerships and distributors to land top clients and press in as she builds the RedHead Wine Brand. She found the strength to venture forward as a solo founder to build a powerful brand in the competitive wine industry.

Are you from a city or town outside of the typical startup hubs?
Trey Bowles is a serial entrepreneur who has made it his mission to create startup hubs in Dallas, Texas and 6 smaller cities around the area. He founded the Dallas entrepreneurship to bring expert mentors who could share their expertise with entrepreneurs to give them a leg up by learning from the successes and failures of those who have done it before. Trey has helped his community venture forward to a $130 Million economic impact in the Greater Dallas areas.

Are you focused on bootstrapping your business through cash flows?
Atisha Patel, the founder of Noticare, a hospital to parent communication platform for the ICU, focused her efforts on bootstrapping her company forward to growth. She leveraged her full-time role to supplement her income as she started the company, leveraging a variety of resources including an eager computer science class at Drexel University to bootstrap and launch her brand to revenues. She has taken on Noticare full-time with a powerful team behind her and runs a boot camp for high school students to learn from her techniques in taking their ventures forward.

Does your market ignore the trends and buzzwords that are making waves?
Joe Gebbia of AirBnB shares his story of creating a new business in the bed in the breakfast space, which was far from a trendy industry at the time. His experience hosting a stranger on an AirBed fostered the original idea, fueled by a rental experience to make quick cash for rent with his roommate and now co-founder that led to the brand. The tip that helped them Venture Forward to unicorn status: “It’s ok to do things early on that don’t scale”- Paul Graham of YCombinator

In this article series, I share excerpts and stories from my book, Venture Forward: Lessons from Leaders. I hope you enjoyed this post — if you enjoyed it and want to connect you can reach me here via email at jkraus@prepare4vc.com or connect with me on social: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter. Also, you can also find my book on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZLGGT6L