Toilet Paper Entrepreneur: The tell-it-like-it-is guide to cleaning up in business, even if you are at the end of your roll

by Mike Michalowicz

In this book, toilet paper is a metaphor for resources. The more you have, the more carelessly you use them. And if you have only a few, you have to get inventive.

Mike Michalowicz, founder of several multimillion-dollar companies, offers an unconventional guide to starting and running a business. A sustainable business is usually built not with millions of dollars in venture capital but with ingenuity and passion.

The book is divided into three parts:

Part 1, "Values": Values are enduring and guide a person. Businesses also need values, and when the values of the founder and the business match, the business becomes authentic and automatically attracts customers who share those values.

Part 2, "Focus": In the initial phase, a company must focus on one product – namely, the one that corresponds to the founder's core competence. Founders must say "no" to everything else.

Part 3, "Actions", contains numerous practical tips and instructions, including long-term planning and its continual adjustment, short-term planning of action items, defining and monitoring metrics, and – ultimately – raising capital.

As a reader, you quickly realize that the book was written by an experienced founder, not an economist. Theory and detailed analysis should not be expected in a book with "toilet paper" in the title. Instead, you are confronted with the unsparing truth about entrepreneurship – in profane language and with a good dose of "potty humor".

I found the book very inspiring and recommend it to anyone who is thinking about starting a business (or has already started one).

🎧 Suitable as an audiobook? Yes, and it is narrated by the author himself.

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Genres

Entrepreneurship Small Business Business Strategy Startups Business Innovation