Guide for starting your own business

Dartmouth College’s Entrepreneurial Network has a new book out that anyone hoping to start his or her own business should read.

From Idea to Success: The Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network’s Guide for Start-Ups is thorough, but not boring.

Author Gregg Fairbrothers, the network director and an adjunct professor of business administration, looks at the topics you would expect: bringing an idea to market, writing a business plan, testing your ideas in the market, securing investors, and managing a new company.

But there are also some helpful and interesting touches that make the book unique.

For example, the chapters are loaded with comments from successful entrepreneurs who answer the question: What I know now that I wish I knew then.

Early in the book, in the Chapter From Idea to Success, Nathan Sigworth, who started Gyrobike and PharmaSecure, talks about the importance of learning to say no, executing well, hiring your customer (meaning having employees who know the product and how customers use it), and taking time off.

It’s a good book and one that I will hang onto and refer to frequently.