Press Contact: Cynthia Shannon, cshannon@bkpub.com

For release October 5, 2012

Hungry Start-Up Strategy

New Book by Peter Cohan Addresses the Unique Challenges Faced by Start-Ups

"This is a book for the intellectually honest entrepreneur who wants to ask the right questions and to learn from successful entrepreneurs some of the possible answers to those question.  […] Peter Cohan has provided a guide that will help the entrepreneur sort the urgent from the important and to navigate the choppy waters of an early stage venture.  He provides a great navigation tool."

- Howard Stevenson, Harvard Business School Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus

San Francisco, CA – Stories of start-up success pervade the media and capture the imaginations of those who want to become the business world’s next noteworthy entrepreneur. Those hungry for this particular kind of rags-to-riches success were left with little in the way of practical advice. Until now.

Peter S. Cohan seeks to change the previous lack of research-based information for start-up companies with HUNGRY START-UP STRATEGY (Berrett-Koehler, $27.95; paperback, 264 pages), in which the celebrated professor and practitioner of entrepreneurship addresses the distinctive challenges start-ups face.

Cohan uses his extensive experience in the business world as the president of a management consulting and venture capital firm as well as interviews conducted with over 150 start-up CEOs to create a guide for the unique rules start-ups must follow. He puts forth the six key start-up choices that are radically different for small companies than for their large counterparts:

• Setting goals
• Picking markets
• Raising capital
• Building teams
• Gaining market share
• Adapting to change

Cohan presents each choice with a decision-making approach as well as lively case studies of what actual entrepreneurs have done in similar situations in order to present a practical how-to guide for small businesses.

HUNGRY START-UP STRATEGY provides the right balance of analysis and how-to practice in order to respond to the unique short-term strategy concerns of start-ups. Cohan’s hunger to provide useful information for his fellow entrepreneurs’ success ends up providing food for thought for all who venture to take a bite.

About the Author

Peter S. Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm that has conducted 150 consulting projects for companies and governments and invested in six private companies, three of which were sold for $2 billion. He teaches strategy at Babson College and entrepreneurship at the Olin College of Engineering. He has taught at Stanford University, Columbia University, MIT, and Barcelona’s EADA and has conducted management development programs sponsored by IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Fidelity Investments, and Procter & Gamble. He has written nine books and coauthored two.

Hungry Start-up Strategy: Creating New Ventures with Limited Resources and Unlimited Vision

By Peter S. Cohan

Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Pub Date: November 2012

ISBN: 978-1-60994-528-2

$27.95; 264 pages; paperback original