Biography Book Review - Confessions of a Serial Entrepeneur Why I Can’t Stop Starting Over by Stuart Skorman with Catherine Guthrie

Book Title        : Confessions of a Serial Entrepeneur Why I Can’t Stop Starting Over

Author              : Stuart Skorman with Catherine Guthrie

Publisher          : Josey-Bass

Date Published: 2007                                      

Number of pages: 214

Genre               : Biography                           

Confessions of a Serial Entrepeneur Why I Can’t Stop Starting Over is a biography book of Stuart Skorman, a serial entrepreneur who addicted to make start-up. He tells the story of up and down he had been through doing business which in line with his principle of life. I enjoyed the fact that the story brought in this book focused on chronologically start-up he ever made from a video store when he was young, following the globalization into dot com, until the last company Elephant Pharmacy he succeeded to establish. The story developed in chapter to chapter and clearly highlighted the topic with bigger and bold font. Moreover, the book also provided tips at the end of the chapter in a text book both specifically for entrepreneur wanna be or job seeker. It makes easier to understand the main point of his journey that is intended to deliver by Stuart and gives additional useful information to the reader.

This book will have no flaws if it presented deeper contents on Stuart private life. Although the story focused on business was great, the private life story will make the book complete. In the first Chapter of the book, Stuart mention a little bit of his family background which is rich Jewish family. As the story going on, he only mentioned about his wife only few. I don’t know if he has no children, but that’s why the reader questioning about his own family. I guess that’s why I assumed that he was barely had time toward his family.

Notwithstanding, the books gave many tips that I can learn about entrepreneurship. One of the tips that really caught my attention is in business we should prioritize fun. When we don’t enjoy our work, we won’t succeed. When we started the business means that we will dedicate our life, that’s why it should be satisfying. It will affect the customers. If the customers see us having fun, they’ll keep coming back. It also motivated me to start my business based on what I love.

When I read throughout the story, I remember myself planning to start a business over times but never really started. I always when I try to find something out of the box first before to guarantee my business being successful. That is the mistake of beginner entrepreneur according to the tips that Stuart mentioned. He said that creativity takes time and money and people should avoid it. Instead of looking for out of the box, we must pay attention to some basic criteria such as choose something doable, important, and if we can copy something did in the past, the do. I think that is true, because if I analyze more, creativity inhibits me to directly take action, otherwise thinking over and over again.

I believe that Stuart Skorman was a typical of entrepreneur who learned much from mistakes he had done. He used to think that he wasn’t motivated by money on doing business but the desire to use that money to build a business that would help people’s live, but at the end of the day he stated: “when you start a business, you need to focus on profit…If your prioritizing helping people, your attention won’t be making money, and your business will fail. The trick to starting s business is both sustainable and socially conscious is to pick a model where helping people is profitable”. This quotation is from Stuart who ever experienced failed Hungry minds.com when he wanted to help people get free Education, but failed because his business is not getting profitable. After that, he changed his business plan and has Pharmacy elephant that is beneficial both for profit and helping people.

People who interested in entrepreneurship must read this book. Not only get to know Stuart adventure on being serial star-u but also can learn many tips on business. I would likely specifically recommend this book to my classmate Azka Fazlur Rahman in English Education Department. He definitely wants to be a successful entrepreneur in younger age to get the modals for his wedding with his beloved girlfriend. Hopefully, this book will lead him to get closer to be success soon.