[Review] Secrets To Entrepreneurial Success

If you’re a young entrepreneurial Padawan in a world of extreme evil that’s out to make sure your fledgling startup doesn’t succeed, what you need may be a master to train you and give you an edge to overcoming those evils.

That’s the goal of Lonnie Sciambi, the self-proclaimed “The Entrepreneur’s Yoda”, with his new book “Secrets to Entrepreneurial Success: Giving Entrepreneurs an Edge, Learned from Years in the Entrepreneurial Trenches“. A veteran of over 30 years as an entrepreneur and advisor to multiple small businesses, Sciambi coalesces much of his knowledge gathered over those years into the book.

“Secrets to Entrepreneurial Success” provides the new entrepreneur much advice at every stage in the growth cycle of a small business, from starting up to growth to near exit, and shares wisdom and simple common sense in equal measure (which may somehow escape a newly-minted entrepreneur). It looks at functional areas – overall business strategy, choosing partners and advisors, marketing, sales, customer service and development, company culture – that are critical to the success of a small business, especially in its formative years. Anecdotal stories from real-life situations end each chapter, giving more context and insight to points Sciambi tries to put through.

“Secrets to Entrepreneurial Success” sometimes reads in a disjointed manner – as Sciambi admits in the foreword, it’s because much of the content originated as blog posts on “The Entrepreneur’s Yoda” and then compiled together – and some of it echoing “secrets” already revealed and shared by many other peers in the same thought leadership space. But it’s still a good read with relevant information and insight that will appeal to many new and aspiring entrepreneurs.

And that, after all, is what you expect from a master.