Low Risk, High Reward: Starting and Growing a Business with Minimal Risk

Reiss, an entrepreneur, does a competent job of covering all the ways to minimize the risk of starting a business--for example, through entering a franchise, partnering with an established company or finding financial backers. In particular, his discussion of the importance of numeracy (the financial equivalent of literacy) helps distinguish his effort from many similar books. But he misses other opportunities to make a unique contribution. For example, on the relatively few occasions when Reiss talks about his own experiences, he conveys a passion the book otherwise lacks; one wishes those sections were longer. Similarly, his insight into entrepreneurship as ""a way of thinking, rather than a personality type"" could have gone a long way toward adding dimension to his pointers had he expanded on it As it is, the book remains a solid if workmanlike checklist for would-be entrepreneurs. (May)