The Internet Start-Up Bible Book

There are two frontrunners for this year's technophobe award. One is the man who called his 24 hour computer support hotline wanting to know how to move the cursor on his screen. "Just roll the mouse in whichever direction you want it to go," he was told. "Yes," he replied, "but if I go any further, it's going to fall off the mat." Another is the executive whose introduction to the Web ended in a panicked phone call to his IT department after he mistakenly closed the application on his desktop. "Oh my God," he explained, "I think I've broken the Internet!" Many traditional businesses will have been wishing it was that simple. For the rest, getting online fast has been the order of the day. The online retail market is predicted to grow by more than 400 per cent between 2000 and 2002, reaching an estimated market value of £39 billion by 2005. The message is simple--if you can't break it, join it. Tess Read, Callum Chace and Simon Rowe's Internet Start-Up Bible is one of the most accessible and intelligently written dot.com guides available. They dispense with the now familiar tale of what the Internet is and how it came about to focus on exactly what an entrepreneur needs to do and how they need to think in order to plan, research, fund, market and design a successful business model on the Internet. They take the logical and too often neglected step of applying the same success criteria to dot.com business start-ups as to traditional ventures. Important sections on the entrepreneurial mindset, the process of shaping ideas into marketable concepts and employing and managing people are included. Detailed chapters on business planning and attracting venture capital are placed at centre stage. Once the fundamentals have been taken care of, the authors dive into the technicalities of Internet business; technology, design, marketing and launch, before concluding with business growth and flotation. Their expertise shines through in the writing, cases studies, extensive links and contact addresses and running quotes from business gurus and key books. The Internet Start-Up Bible is a smart and savvy resource for the fledgling e-business. --Iain CampbellRead More