Elegant Entrepreneur by Danielle Tate

Since I have an interest in someday starting my own company, when I see guides on "how to" set up one, I tend to request them. And when they're aimed at women, there's no way I'm not clicking that request button.

Anyway, Elegant Entrepreneur is basically geared towards women who want to set up their own companies. It basically takes you from idea (start) to selling your company (end, if you choose). The author is the founder of a business called MisstoMrs.com, which is supposed to be a successful business (I'm not the target of this service (and neither are most people I know), being neither American nor married, so I can't even begin to judge if it's famous or not).

Each chapter is fairly short, with a roundup (Takeaways), a 'How it Feels' (basically action steps) and at least one quote per chapter. Plus, lots of examples of successful women entrepreneurs, which is definitely motivating. There's also a list of relevant books which you can read for more insight at the end of each chapter.

Oh, and there's a glossary of terms at the back of the book too, though I didn't need it at all. But I'm also a business/econs student so quite a lot of this (especially models like SWOT and Porter's Five Forces) are familiar to me.

Actually, I think that this book will be helpful not just to women, but to the men too. The advice is mostly basic but useful stuff, and some of it (like raising funds and seed rounds) are things that I don't really remember seeing in most introductory books. I like that it gives the reader a very concrete idea, rather than vague generalities on getting things done right.

I'd say that this is a very good book to read if you're thinking of starting a business and you're new to the whole industry. It has a lot of resources, it explains things very well, and since it starts from the idea stage, it's perfect for those just starting out. And after you narrowed down what you want to use, more specialised books like The Business Model Canvas might be easier to use.

And yes, all the examples are exclusively female, but in this (hopefully more enlightened era), I believe even guys will find this useful. Plus, if girls could use books that were male-example dominated, there's no excuse why guys can't use a book with examples taken from successful women.

Note: a version of this review first appeared on my Dayre