After working through all the issues in this book, you will have thought about all the issues that are essential to your business's success.

"Required reading for the aspiring entrepreneur", This book tells you, the aspiring entrepreneur, exactly what potential investors in your company are thinking and why. Furthermore, it tells you in clear , simple and direct prose exactly how you should be thinking in order to get their investment. The first chapter sends home the message that the business plan is your admission ticket to an audience which is not only rich, but also very secretive, selective, and more often than not, extremely conservative. Rich and Gumpert clearly tell you, the budding mogul, that you don't get something for nothing, and that you had better have something outstanding and tangible to put forward in order to woo the moneymen. They walk you through what investors look for and look out for, the best way to package your business plan, all the sections the financial spin doctors pay very close attention to, and finally, how to make the best possible oral pitch. Rich and Gumpert also do a very good job of sending the reader the message that the aspiring entrepreneur should have a solid idea of his/her own goals as well as his hopes for his/her company. However, the most important thing this dynamic duo imparts to the enterprising entrepreneur is the knowledge of the type of company(ies) which ultimately receive venture capital funding, and what the entrepreneur should be thinking and doing to become one of those chosen few companies. Even though the book was first printed a decade and a half ago, all of the information contained in it is not only accurate, but also very applicable to any start-up. Let no one fool you on this point: whenever you go hat in hand asking for someone to put up a pretty penny to back something new, unproven, untested, and unconventional that stands a good chance of going bust, expect them to be very wary and very, very conservative. Though some may see this book as outdated, I see this book as having a timeless quality. This is no fair-weather text; this book is a mainstay business reference which should be displayed prominently on one's bookshelf and referred to throughout every stage of the start-up process to maintain a good perspective and a sharp focus. My only regret is that no one gave me this book while I was a student at MIT. It would have saved me a lot of time and headaches.

"Great advice on writing winning plans but getting outdated.", This book was great at giving the investor's angle on what a winning plan should and shouldn't include. It will almost definitely make an existing plan better and guide you toward a great plan if you're just starting (as I was). Be careful of the opinions about financing liklihood based on it's prescribed ranking system. The book was first written in 1985 and the venture captial world today bears little resemblance. The book is outdatedly bearish on startup financing.

"A must-read for anyone starting or growing a business", This is not a simple how-to book for writing a business plan. It goes beyond that and enters into a discussion of what you need to make your business succeed. Its real life examples, showing the thought processes of investors when considering business plans, give entrepreneurs needed insight into the evaluation process. This book is short enough that I read it on one sitting, but I soon found myself going back to it again and again for all of its help in marketing, sales, management, and the planning process. Ed Martin, Small Business Information