Elegant Entrepreneur – Danielle Tate

(Reviewed by J.D. Jung)

“Most big ideas stem from personal pain or frustration. Entrepreneurs are professional problem solvers. They have identified something in our daily lives that could be made better and look for solutions. …Entrepreneurs investigate viable solutions and determine if those solutions have real business potential. “

That was the case with Danielle Tate who had to take a day off of work to change her name when she got married. This led her to start a successful online business, MissNowMrs.com.

Lucky for us, she now offers step-by-step detailed instructions on how to build a business, from inception through exit in her book, Elegant Entrepreneur.

So you think you have a marketable idea, but is it truly unique? Even if you have an innovative idea, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should build a company to support it. Look at that idea from a business perspective. Do solutions already exist, and if so, what is the size of the market? Tate takes you through all of the factors, and even alternatives to starting a company.

So you’ve decided to go ahead with your business. Should you partner with an existing company? Maybe you should seek  a co-founder who possesses skills that you don’t have. How do find such a good and reliable person?

How will you fund it? Maybe crowd-sourcing from potential customers? Tate gives lots of ideas and options. In any event, you need to find exactly what your customer wants before you even start.

You have to keep up on the competition before and after going live. How do you test your product or service. How do you build your support team, (attorneys, accountants, etc.) before you need them? And of course, how do you keep your product/service fresh?

There is so much useful advice in Elegant Entrepreneur that I can’t even begin to cover even half of it. Each chapter ends with a “Takeaway” and a “How It Feels” section, along with further reading suggestions. In fact, I’ve already bought one of them! In the back there is a glossary of entrepreneurial terms with in-depth explanations.

Men will benefit from this book also. Most of the male entrepreneurs I know are just as emotional about their company as women are. In fact they often can’t separate themselves from their business.

I’ve know quite a few unsuccessful entrepreneurs throughout the years, and after reading Elegant Entrepreneur I think I can pinpoint where they went wrong.

Elegant Entrepreneur is indispensable for anyone who thinks that they have a unique idea for a business and who dreams of working for themselves.