Book Review

You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Business

Why You Need to Be a Little Crazy to Launch a Startup

If 33% of all businesses fail in the first two years and over 50% close in the first four, exactly what does it take to start your own business?  In his new book You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Business (October 2003, Dearborn Trade Publishing, $18.95), serial entrepreneur and angel investor Barry Moltz debunks the myths of start-up businesses and confirms what many entrepreneurs already know: passion, courage, and a streak of craziness are what enable people to turn their backs on stability to pursue their dreams.

Offering a revealing glimpse into the persona of the entrepreneur and the qualities that nourish success, You Need to Be a Little Crazy delivers insights punctuated by the author’s irreverent humor.  Moltz has founded three companies himself, and as an angel investor counsels dozens of entrepreneurs every month.  He has personally experienced the emotional ups and downs, disappointing failures, AND spectacular successes of running a start-up, and his book delivers straight talk about the complex intersection of a fledgling business, financial health, physical well-being, spiritual wholeness, and family life. 

You Need to Be a Little Crazy explores the passion that fuels the entrepreneur’s dream, but it’s also full of practical advice about how to maximize real-world resources.  The book teaches entrepreneurs to:

Build “trust capital” by finding customers, early on, with enough trust to give a young company a chance Form alliances the natural way, emphasizing the need between customer and product or service . Let the business grow at its own pace, without forcing new developments before their time. Recognize that networking is your life, and your life is your network. Appreciate the support, structure, and perspective that family can offer—and don’t shut them out.

The extended economic downturn following the ‘90s boom, continuing corporate scandals, and the fallout in the technology sector have businesspeople and especially entrepreneurs reflecting on the meaning of work in their lives.  You Need to Be a Little Crazy shows entrepreneurs that they are not alone in their journey, and that with passion, courage, and a little craziness, they can remain calm and sane while riding the start-up roller coaster. 

Barry Moltz is cofounder of Prairie Angels, a Chicago-based group of private investors committed to investing in early stage companies. He is a business coach and serial entrepreneur, and is a popular speaker on start-up business, business capitalization, and quality-of-life issues for entrepreneurs.  Moltz is on the Steering Committee of the National Angels Summits (sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation) and is a member of the Advisory Board of the state of Illinois Entrepreneurship Centers.

You Need to Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Business  ($18.95, 224 pages, 6 x 9, paperback, ISBN: 0-7931-8018-X) by Barry Moltz is available at neighborhood and online booksellers or by calling 877-245-BOOK.

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