Smartups - Book Analysis

In Rob Ryan’s book, “Smartups,” the founder of Ascend Communications presents viable lessons from his Entrepreneur America Boot Camp for Start-Ups. The entrepreneurial journey entails a continual ebb and flow of highs and lows. Start-ups can be referred to as small business ventures in most cases, and we know that business comes in cycles. Rob Ryan was a pioneer in the high-technology industry by providing firms with needed infrastructure for keeping up pace with the rapidly growing internet. Explained thoroughly in the book, he constantly develops methods for maintaining sustainable businesses that actually make money. Ryan has absorbed knowledge from all stages of building a business, including  analytics, marketing, sales, finance, etc. In Smartups, he emphasizes the importance of testing business ideas on potential customers to ensure that a product offers something revolutionary and significant. He also recognizes that a team’s core competencies are crucial because understanding how a business functions internally will help it present more effectively to the world externally. After reading Smartups, it can be concluded that Ryan’s strategies can help guide an entrepreneur from idea to product by taking it to investors and getting a start-up off the ground in the most potent way possible. Rob Ryan has helped launch a vast inventory of successful companies. And in reference to his portfolio, most of them provide necessary electronic solutions to real-world problems while also saving their customers much-needed time and money. With extensive knowledge of the rapidly-changing tech world, Ryan delivers “smart” tips, thus the book name “Smartups.” Overall, now more than ever, entrepreneurs must do their homework to turn half-formed ideas into a lucrative reality.

As an attentive reader, one specific learning I absorbed most keenly was Ryan's chapter on wanna-be's. To go into some detail, there are seven categories of wanna-be's: quickie, wonderful wacky MBA, send money, dreamers, one-stripe zebra, technoid, and guts and brains. Each version of a wanna-be correlates to a unique set of characteristics in regards to types of entrepreneurs. The best kind of wanna-be is guts and brains because they are the entrepreneurs who have the best chance of succeeding. Instead of backing down from a challenge, they will resiliently chase their dream or idea and prove to those around them that they have what it takes to improve their business. This is the type of drive needed to gain attention from investors to help power a startup or boost a company when it's in its early stages. Comparing and contrasting all of the other types of wanna-be's is a great way to understand the types of players in the entrepreneurial world. It can help someone to not only better their business but also improve themselves.

The second specific learning that I resonated with was a set of valuable material found within chapter three: The Sunflower Model. Showcased by the center of the sunflower is a company's core competency. Then, the petals are the products and markets, and the stem is the underlying assumptions. Ryan recommends that entrepreneurs follow their particular sunflower model through all of the ebbs and flows because it is a foundational base that will ultimately always prevail. Just as establishing a code of ethics is essential to a company's functionality, having a core set of general information to provide to customers and venture capitalists is a resourceful strategy as well. The Sunflower Model is a simplistic and competent way to organize a business's underlying assumptions and use it as a reference tool.

Finally, the third specific learning that stood out to me while reading this book was how customer feedback matters tremendously to an entrepreneur and their entity. Through the illustration of a dog and dog food concept, Ryan explained the nature of customer feedback. The dog represented potential customers, and dog food illustrated the product produced by an entrepreneur (Ryan, 2002). I learned that customers' perspectives towards a given product severely impact the success of that business. In other words, as an entrepreneur, it is imperative to ensure effective collection of consumer feedback and ask as many questions as possible. This can help the business leaders make any necessary changes, shift gears, and understand where the business currently stands before going out and talking to investors. All in all, collecting data and knowing more about the market is always a good call.

For the last section of this book analysis, I'd like to document a few final thoughts that will impact my personal and professional life and jot down some questions that I'd like to ask Mr. Ryan. I have always possessed an entrepreneurial side since as far back as I can remember. To adequately explain my reasoning for believing that, I would need many more pages of space to do it justice. Moreover, because I care about developing as an entrepreneur, the contents found in Smartups were extraordinarily relevant and eye-opening to me. Aside from the critical learnings stated above, I engrossed all of the notions on what it takes to be a stand-out entrepreneur. I was fascinated by Ryan's tips on selling to investors, not only your business plan but yourself as a leader. After establishing my main goals in life, I will place them at the center of my sunflower model. This modeling practice will help ensure that I stay focused on them and ensure that everything I do is to achieve such goals. Real desirable results take patient time to attain; however, they are possible by thinking smart and working hard. Lastly, my only sincere question that I have for Rob Ryan is, "What are some of the common questions which potential investors ask entrepreneurs, and how can an entrepreneur ensure that they answer such questions in a proper manner?" It doesn't hurt to be prepared.

References:

Ryan, R. (2002). Smartups: Lessons from Rob Ryan’s Entrepreneur America Boot Camp for Start-Ups. Cornell University Press.