Book picks similar to
My Life & 1,000 Houses: Failing Forward to Financial Freedom by Mitch Stephen
real-estate
entrepreneurship
invest
entrepreneur
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management
Roger Lowenstein - 2000
Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein explains not just how the fund made and lost its money but also how the personalities of Long-Term’s partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the culture of Wall Street itself contributed to both their rise and their fall.When it was founded in 1993, Long-Term was hailed as the most impressive hedge fund in history. But after four years in which the firm dazzled Wall Street as a $100 billion moneymaking juggernaut, it suddenly suffered catastrophic losses that jeopardized not only the biggest banks on Wall Street but the stability of the financial system itself. The dramatic story of Long-Term’s fall is now a chilling harbinger of the crisis that would strike all of Wall Street, from Lehman Brothers to AIG, a decade later. In his new Afterword, Lowenstein shows that LTCM’s implosion should be seen not as a one-off drama but as a template for market meltdowns in an age of instability—and as a wake-up call that Wall Street and government alike tragically ignored.
Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies
Reid Hoffman - 2018
So what separates the startups that get disrupted and disappear from the ones who grow to become global giants?The secret is blitzscaling: a set of techniques for scaling up at a dizzying pace that blows competitors out of the water. The objective of Blitzscaling is not to go from zero to one, but from one to one billion -as quickly as possible.When growing at a breakneck pace, getting to next level requires very different strategies from those that got you to where you are today. In a book inspired by their popular class at Stanford Business School, Hoffman and Yeh reveal how to navigate the necessary shifts and weather the unique challenges that arise at each stage of a company's life cycle, such as: how to design business models for igniting and sustaining relentless growth; strategies for hiring and managing; how the role of the founder and company culture must evolve as the business matures, and more.Whether your business has ten employees or ten thousand, Blitzscaling is the essential playbook for winning in a world where speed is the only competitive advantage that matters.
The Intelligent Investor
Benjamin Graham - 1949
Graham's philosophy of "value investing" -- which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies -- has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.Over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham's strategies. While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles.Vital and indispensable, this HarperBusiness Essentials edition of The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.
Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
Michael E. Porter - 1980
Porter's Competitive Strategy has transformed the theory, practice, and teaching of business strategy throughout the world. Electrifying in its simplicity -- like all great breakthroughs -- Porter's analysis of industries captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying forces. Porter introduces one of the most powerful competitive tools yet developed: his three generic strategies -- lowest cost, differentiation, and focus -- which bring structure to the task of strategic positioning. He shows how competitive advantage can be defined in terms of relative cost and relative prices, thus linking it directly to profitability, and presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided. In the almost two decades since publication, Porter's framework for predicting competitor behavior has transformed the way in which companies look at their rivals and has given rise to the new discipline of competitor assessment. More than a million managers in both large and small companies, investment analysts, consultants, students, and scholars throughout the world have internalized Porter's ideas and applied them to assess industries, understand competitors,, and choose competitive positions. The ideas in the book address the underlying fundamentals of competition in a way that is independent of the specifics of the ways companies go about competing. Competitive Strategy has filled a void in management thinking. It provides an enduring foundation and grounding point on which all subsequent work can be built. By bringing a disciplined structure to the question of how firms achieve superior profitability, Porter's rich frameworks and deep insights comprise a sophisticated view of competition unsurpassed in the last quarter-century.
Against All Odds: A Story Of Courage, Perseverance And Hope
Dhirubhai Ambani
Titans of Real Estate: 7 Key Lessons from Real Estate Billionaires
Erez Cohen - 2019
Whether through luck or fortune, he was assigned a position with the real estate group. He was handed a book that soon birthed his love affair with real estate that continues to this day. Erez left the investment banking firm and applied to Wharton Business School where he became a Teacher and Research Assistant to his mentor, Dr. Linneman. During that time, he met, talked, and heard stories from distinguished real estate titans, such as Stephen Ross, Barry Sternlicht, Sam Zell, Steven Roth, etc. This informative time placed him in a unique position to collect knowledge from many of these titans.Surrounded by so many titans, Erez's curiosity grew and can be distilled into three critical questions: 1. What inspires these titans to work so hard and reach such extraordinary levels of success?2. What are the main elements and traits inside of them that propel them to be so grandoise?3. How have thse individuals, which most of the time had less resources and talent, succeeded on a much bigger scale than so many of their competitiors?Through these questions, Erez interviewed the most successful real estate titans around the world; to take their combined knowledge and delve it for commonalities - to dig dig and find the core pieces of knowledge that drove each of these titans to the top of their chosen fields.In Real Estate Titans, Erez will reveal the seven key lessons he learned from his journey of discover - key lessons that revealed themselves both through these interviews and his time working with multiple mentors and magnates in his careers.
How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It
Mark Cuban - 2011
Using the greatest material from his popular Blog Maverick, he has collected and updated his postings on business and life to provide a catalog of insider knowledge on what it takes to become a thriving entrepreneur. Cuban tells his own rags-to-riches story of how he went from selling powdered milk and sleeping on friends' couches to owning his own company and becoming a multi-billion dollar success story. His unconventional yet highly effective ideas on how to build a successful business offer entrepreneurs at any stage of their careers a huge edge over their competitors.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Robert T. Kiyosaki - 1997
The book explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to be rich and explains the difference between working for money and having your money work for you.
Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers
Timothy Ferriss - 2016
From the author: “For the last two years, I’ve interviewed more than 200 world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. The guests range from super celebs (Jamie Foxx, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc.) and athletes (icons of powerlifting, gymnastics, surfing, etc.) to legendary Special Operations commanders and black-market biochemists. For most of my guests, it’s the first time they’ve agreed to a two-to-three-hour interview. This unusual depth has helped make The Tim Ferriss Show the first business/interview podcast to pass 100 million downloads. “This book contains the distilled tools, tactics, and ‘inside baseball’ you won’t find anywhere else. It also includes new tips from past guests, and life lessons from new ‘guests’ you haven’t met. “What makes the show different is a relentless focus on actionable details. This is reflected in the questions. For example: What do these people do in the first sixty minutes of each morning? What do their workout routines look like, and why? What books have they gifted most to other people? What are the biggest wastes of time for novices in their field? What supplements do they take on a daily basis? “I don’t view myself as an interviewer. I view myself as an experimenter. If I can’t test something and replicate results in the messy reality of everyday life, I’m not interested. “Everything within these pages has been vetted, explored, and applied to my own life in some fashion. I’ve used dozens of the tactics and philosophies in high-stakes negotiations, high-risk environments, or large business dealings. The lessons have made me millions of dollars and saved me years of wasted effort and frustration. “I created this book, my ultimate notebook of high-leverage tools, for myself. It’s changed my life, and I hope the same for you.”
The Food Truck Handbook: Start, Grow, and Succeed in the Mobile Food Business
David Weber - 2012
Consumers are flocking to these mobile food businesses in droves, inspiring national food truck competitions and even a show dedicated to the topic on The Food Network. The relatively low cost of entry as compared to starting a restaurant, combined with free and low-cost ways to market them to the masses via platforms like social media, are just two of the reasons that food truck business are drawing in budding entrepreneurs.Author David Weber, a food truck advocate and entrepreneur himself, is here to offer his practical, step-by-step advice to achieving your mobile food mogul dreams in The Food Truck Handbook. This book cuts through all of the hype to give both hopeful entrepreneurs and already established truck owners an accurate portrayal of life on the streets. From concept to gaining a loyal following to preventative maintenance on your equipment this book covers it all.
Worth Every Penny: Build a Business That Thrills Your Customers and Still Charge What You're Worth
Sarah Petty - 2012
Worth Every Penny encourages business owners to use a different business model, one that is designed to maximize their advantages over the big-box stores and other discounting competitors. They’ll learn how to: - -Create a brand that lets them charge what their offering are worth - -Create products and high-touch customer experiences to achieve healthy margins and an outspokenly happy and loyal client base. - -Use a pricing strategy guaranteed to create demand and attract the right customers instead of discounting to attract new clients. - -Throw traditional advertising to the wind and implement a boutique way of marketing to excel in a competitive business environment. - -Use the relationship-based sales skills needed to close every sale and have their clients clamoring for more.
The Moonshot Game: Adventures of an Indian Venture Capitalist
Rahul Chandra - 2019
The second wave came in 2006 when home-grown VCs raised large amounts of capital and funded products and services companies for Indian consumers.This is a gripping behind-the-scenes story of a VC's journey, right from the beginning of the second start-up revolution in India in 2006 until the end of the funding frenzy in 2016. A story about how global conditions, local consumers, founder ambition and good old greed shaped the start-up story in India.Rahul Chandra is the co-founder of Helion Ventures, and in this candid memoir he tells us about his journey building one of India's oldest VC firms. In a remarkably gripping account, he recounts his adventures in India's hyper-funded start-up ecosystem.The Moonshot Game gives readers an insight into the secret world of a VC, with unguarded stories involving large bets and big mistakes, and tales of how one juggles several investments at the same time.Rahul shows why being a VC is a constant journey of ups and downs, why building value is a long-term business, and why no amount of failure can be an excuse to lose optimism in the power of entrepreneurship.
Making it in Real Estate: Starting Out as a Developer
John McNellis - 2016
Offering humorous insights, the book covers the ins and outs of how to get financing; how to work with architects, brokers, and other professionals; and how to make a good deal and win approval for your project. Making It in Real Estate: Starting Out as a Developer, First Edition, has ranked among the top 20 real estate books for four consecutive years, winning hundreds of 5-star reviews.
Investing in Rental Properties for Beginners: Buy Low, Rent High
Lisa Phillips - 2018
AFFORDABLE.This book on investing in rental properties for beginners is the foundation of what I’ve built 47,000 person social media platform on – helping the average person get involved in rental properties on an average income, and building the cash flow of their dreams with 2-5 properties. That’s it.This will teach you (the ordinary investor) how to tailor your investment strategy to your pocketbooks (and no one else’s). You don’t need to ask your parents or friends for loans because the best approach to building a rental portfolio is by purchasing units in modest neighborhoods that offer really high rents (i.e. purchase a $44,000 rental that earns $1200 a month in rents).If being a real estate investor is your dream and being a landlord is not, this is the book for you! The author will personally take you through the steps she’s used on over 560 people to build their dream income and lifestyle.Here’s some of what you’ll discover in this book:
Find what the best market/price for your investment portfolio should be for your budget;
Learn how to invest out of state EASILY and EFFORTLESSLY to build your portfolio;
How to find low cost properties and analyze them to make sure you are choosing the right property;
How NOT to be swindled out of thousands by contractors;
The Three KEY FACTORS that determine whether it’s a good deal or not;
How vacancy rates is a MADE UP NUMBER and how to professionally analyze any rental market;
The difference between a rental property owner versus landlord - and how that impacts your investment strategy;
That there is such a thing as a profitable and compassionate real estate investor, and you can do your part to offer long term affordable housing and stop the middle class squeeze;
If you’re ready to turn your dreams of being a real estate investor into a reality, then hit the BUY NOW button!
Am I Being Too Subtle?: Straight Talk From a Business Rebel
Sam Zell - 2017
Self-made billionaire Sam Zell consistently sees what others don’t. From finding a market for overpriced Playboy magazines among his junior high classmates, to buying real estate on the cheap after a market crash, to investing in often unglamorous industries with long-term value, Zell acts boldly on supply and demand trends to grab the first-mover advantage. And he can find opportunity virtually anywhere—from an arcane piece of legislation to a desert meeting in Abu Dhabi. “If everyone is going left, look right,” Zell often says. To him, conventional wisdom is nothing but a reference point. Year after year, deal after deal, he shuts out the noise of the crowd, gathers as much information as possible, then trusts his own instincts. He credits much of his independent thinking to his parents, who were Jewish refugees from World War II. Talk to any two people and you might get wild swings in their descriptions of Zell. A media firestorm ensued when the Tribune Company went into bankruptcy a year after he agreed to steward the enterprise. At the same time, his razor-sharp instincts are legendary on Wall Street, and he has sponsored over a dozen IPOs. He’s known as the Grave Dancer for his strategy of targeting troubled assets, yet he’s created thousands of jobs. Within his own organization, he has an inordinate number of employees at every level who are fiercely loyal and have worked for him for decades. Zell’s got a big personality; he is often contrarian, blunt, and irreverent, and always curious and hardworking. This is the guy who started wearing jeans to work in the 1960s, when offices were a sea of gray suits. He’s the guy who told The Wall Street Journal in 1985, “If it ain’t fun, we don’t do it.” He rides motorcycles with his friends, the Zell’s Angels, around the world and he keeps ducks on the deck outside his office. As he writes: “I simply don’t buy into many of the made-up rules of social convention. The bottom line is: If you’re really good at what you do, you have the freedom to be who you really are.” Am I Being Too Subtle?—a reference to Zell’s favorite way to underscore a point—takes readers on a ride across his business terrain, sharing with honesty and humor stories of the times he got it right, when he didn’t, and most important, what he learned in the process. This is an indispensable guide for the next generation of disrupters, entrepreneurs, and investors.