Small Business, Big Vision Review

As a regular contributor over at Young Entrepreneur, I had heard about the brothers Adam and Matthew Toren long before a pre-release copy of their book Small Business, Big Vision landed on my desk.

Young Entrepreneur is a portal offering advice, tips, and some crucial direction to entrepreneurs both new and experienced. It’s a great resource that supports the most vital seeds of any economy – those passionate and driven individuals with ideas to build something big.

The brothers behind the site have now penned a book, which I think is going to make a very timely read for individuals with entrepreneurial blood running through the veins. It will particularly help those of you who have thought about making the jump in to a small business, but haven’t yet mustered the courage to tear through so many unknowns.

Small Business, Big Vision is very much a book for the twenty first century entrepreneur. It melds together practical advice covering the creation of your business plan, attracting investors, outsourcing vs. employing and some key tips for using social media.

The pages are littered with perspective from entrepreneurs that you will likely be familiar with. Guys like Mike Michalowicz, the famous Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Brent Oxley, who founded HostGator in his dorm, and Gary Vaynerchuk who is present just about bloody everywhere.

As a guy who makes his living solely online, the book resonates with me. I get the sense the authors are fighting back the temptation to scream that entrepreneurs have never had it so easy. And it’s true, we haven’t.

Since the rise of the Internet, the economy has shifted towards the web in such a way that there are opportunities for everyone. Forming a small business used to be about racking up the courage to go public with a bold idea, often in your local town or bravely on a national level. The web has made it possible to hide behind a screen and still reel in the dollar bills. There’s less risk of personal embarrassment, and much less start-up cost attached.

The book slants heavily towards this modern breed of online entrepreneur. While I’m sure the brothers have widened their goalposts in an attempt to make it relevant to all entrepreneurs, there’s definitely a strong spotlight placed on how multimillion enterprises can be formed from your bedroom if you have the vision.

As an online entrepreneur, that’s just what I like to hear.

However, striking the balance between appeasing this generation of Internet entrepreneurs, and opening up opportunities for those who aren’t so web-savvy is always going to be a stern task in book form.

If you’re the kind of entrepreneur who’s seeking guidance on how to find the right solutions for a brick and mortar business, a lot of the information packed in to these pages may not strike you as directly relevant to your needs. Most of the spotlighted entrepreneurs have stumbled across their success using the web as their main medium, rather than an optional market for growth.

Small Business, Big Vision is extremely well written and cuts like a knife through subjects that are notorious minefields to even think about it. The process of obtaining investment is very well addressed and you will likely exit the chapter with a greater deal of clarity than you started.

It also swiftly addresses the pros and cons of outsourcing for anybody caught between two minds. To take on staff or to send my expectations, hopes and dreams to a polite sounding chap in the Phillipines? It’s a tough one, but again, the Toren brothers have laid out both sides of the argument very objectively. They repeat this throughout the book across a variety of common issues for entrepreneurs, including the dreaded realisation that you need to make changes for your business to survive.

If I could advocate one feeling that you’re likely to take from the book, it would have to be clarity.

Clarity plus the jealous motivation of hearing what so many other successful entrepreneurs have done to grow their millions. It’s an intoxicating combination and a real kick up the arse if you’ve been waiting flat-footed for your big break to arrive.

You can find more information about Small Business, Big Vision on the book’s website, or go ahead and order your copy from Amazon when it’s released on September 13th (My blurry calendar tells me that the 13th is today, go fetch!).

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