Find You Lightbulb: How to make millions from apparently impossible ideas is billed as a book that provides help finding a business idea, getting funding or creating a brand.

Reading the first two chapters could easily put you off when you learn that Mike Harris is not an entrepreneur. As the Oxford English Dictionary defines it an entrepreneur is one who undertakes an enterprise; one who owns and manages a business; a person who takes the risk of profit or loss. However Harris didn’t own the businesses having set them up on behalf of his employer and while he may have stood to gain from their success he was almost certainly taking on no personal financial risk. Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but it does give you a different perspective to those of us that have started a business knowing that we’ve got to make it work or face loosing our homes.

The chapter on Insightful Insights is brilliant – EVERY entrepreneur should read this. It’s something many good entrepreneurs do, but sadly far too many do not despite it being a cheap way to establish how to turn a business idea into reality. The example of the US mission to put a man on the moon is a great choice. The chapter on finding business ideas is good too – years ago (when I first started) I’d have been tempted to say it was too hard – now I think it’s a great way – if you can’t make it happen then your probably not determined, organised or a good enough leader to become an entrepreneur. The chapter on funding again shows Harris’ experience is creating new businesses within the corporate environment as he focuses on high growth using venture capital. The chapter on smart risks however is something more entrepreneurs should read.

So who is Mike Harris? Well he was the founding CEO of Firstdirect and later Egg, in between those he was the CEO of Mercury Communications and later the chairman of Mercury One-2-One. He is now the co-founder of Garlik.

It’s a good book, but I’d only really recommend it to those looking to start high growth businesses that hope to have a turnover measured in the hundreds of millions as it’s just not relevant the the average business start-up.

You can buy it from Amazon UK or Amazon USA.

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