New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century is about the actual process of getting a new venture started, growing the venture, successfully harvesting it, and starting again. It continues to be the product of experience and considerable research in the field—rooted in real-world application and refined in the classroom. The design and flow of the book are aimed at creating knowledge, skills, and awareness. In a pragmatic way—through text, case studies and hands-on exercises—students are drawn in to discover critical aspects of entrepreneurship, and what levels of competencies, know-how, experience, attitudes, resources and networks are required to pursue different entrepreneurial opportunities. The Eighth edition includes new cases and exercises, updated Web sites, and new text material to capture the current financial, economic, technological, and globally competitive environment of this first decade of the new century.

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Earlier versions of this book had good material on writing a business plan and determining appropriate sources of capital and less extraneous fillers. Save yourself a lot of money and buy a more practical book on the subject or the 1995 version if you want the business plan and financing materials.

11 of 14 found the following review helpful:

Comprehensive "Owners' Manual" for EntrepreneursNov 21, 2001
By Lisa Anne in Northern California "laforsythe"
Like the previous reviewer, I too purchased the 4th Edition of this text (paperback), and was extremely pleased. Before starting my current business, I consulted extensively with this text, and was pleased with its comprehensive, practical nature - covering everything from a personality assessment of one's readiness for self-employment, to exhaustive preparation information for a business plan. The book also extensively covers financing an entrepreneurial venture, comparing both debt and equity (including Venture Capital) methodologies.

On a practical note, I also like the fact that all the pages are perforated...there have been several that I have taken out and used hands-on!

I cannot comment on the relative worth of this version vs. the newer version, as I only have the 4th edition.

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Lots of fillerDec 05, 2009
By The Accountant
I had to read this book cover-to-cover for an MBA class.

Although there is some very good information in this book, there is a *lot* of filler material. I think it would have been a much better book at about half the length or less.

During the term, I would type up reviews of each chapter for exams. I was often stunned at how little substance I was recording. Sometimes a 20 paged chapter could be condensed down to 4 or 5 points on a half sheet of paper!

The fact that it's in black & white and light on the graphics/figures/tables didn't help the interest level while reading.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Finally, a Drug-free Cure for Insomnia! Good News/Bad NewsMar 03, 2008
By Jim Allen "Chicago Entrepreneur"
This has got to rank near the top of driest, most repetitive business (including accounting) textbooks I've come across! I should know because I already have an MBA. I could not get through more than two pages before nodding off. My eyes burned from trying to read through reverse print/images from the back of a page in what couldn't be much larger than 6 point type on gray pages! The book is printed on paper stock on par with your typical trashy Hollywood celebrity magazine. Be careful flipping pages, you might rip them. When I tried to highlight passages, it bled through to the next page! My suggestion is to skim the chapter summaries, go back and read the section(s) you need more detail on and save your eyes.

The book came with a card to access online resources. Despite my book being brand new and still shrink wrapped, an error message popped up when I tried to register, stating that the access code was no longer valid or had been used previously. This was disappointing, but from others I had heard that the site was of little value.

The GOOD NEWS is that this book is an excellent reference, chock-full of great information, screening tests for assessing and tweaking a business plan, examples, etc. This Timmons book (and it's previous incarnations) has withstood the test of time for decades (First published in 1974!). The screening tests and methodology for starting up a business developed at Babson College are tried and true.

If you need structure and guidance in starting up a business, this is the book for you.

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