Stop blaming external circumstances when things go wrong. Only hire people who have previously worked in a start-up. Take care of your health! These are three of the 66 concrete “rules” for entrepreneurs collected in the book 66 Simple Rules for Entrepreneurs – A Roadmap for Improved Performance. The authors Dean Shepard, Holger Patzelt and Nicola Breugst are all professors of business administration and base the rules on their own and others’ entrepreneurship research.
The rules in the book are structured according to the entrepreneur’s journey. There are rules to help you identify business opportunities, choose which market to enter, make decisions – and how to develop plans and strategies. Beyond the business aspects of entrepreneurship, we also find rules on how entrepreneurs can get through the emotional rollercoaster of the entrepreneurial journey. For example, it is important to take your negative emotions seriously and to find out what you need as a person to feel good in your business.
Working in a socially sustainable way and being able to deal with mistakes and failures are also part of the business journey, around which there are a plethora of rules. To be able to withstand crises, for example, it is good to be optimistic – it makes you more proactive.
For those who want to know more about the research behind the rules, there is a list in the book for further reading. The book is free to read – download the book here.
