The Entrepreneur’s Handbook: 101 Resources for First Time Entrepreneurs

Are you looking to take the leap into starting your own business in 2018? If you’re just starting to think about it, or if you have been planning it for a while, you still may have lots of unanswered questions. The following 101 resources will help you learn more about entrepreneurship, startups, small business, and much more.

Entrepreneurs & Startups

• Entrepreneurship Articles on Medium – A collection of the latest and greatest entrepreneurship articles published on the Medium platform.
• Entrepreneur.com – Business ideas and trends from Entrepreneur Magazine. The latest news, expert advice, and growth strategies for small business owners.
• Forbes for Entrepreneurs – Read the breaking Entrepreneurs coverage and top headlines on Forbes.
• Inc. Start-up – Advice for founders of start-ups and start-up entrepreneurs on writing a business plan, running a home-based business, naming a start-up business, how to incorporate, financing a start-up, buying a small business, and starting a franchise.
• Entrepreneurs’ Organization – The Entrepreneurs’ Organization is dedicated to transforming the lives of the entrepreneurs who transform the world representing 40 countries with 120 worldwide chapters.
• Harvard Business School Entrepreneurs – A video archives that captures insights from leading members of the School’s entrepreneurial community.
• Young Entrepreneur Council – YEC is an invite only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs.
• Ted Talks on Entrepreneurship – Video archive on talks about entrepreneurship.
• Kauffman Foundation – The Kauffman Foundation works to further understanding of the powerful economic impact of entrepreneurship, to develop programs that enhance entrepreneurial skills and abilities, and to improve the environment in which entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
• Global Entrepreneurship Week – Global Entrepreneurship Week is the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups that bring ideas to life, drive economic growth and expand human welfare.
• SCORE – SCORE is a nonprofit association dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and helping small businesses start, grow, and succeed nationwide.
• Focus – Focus makes the world’s business expertise available to everyone. At the heart of Focus is a network of thousands of leading business and technology experts who are thought leaders, veteran practitioners and upstart innovators in hundreds of different topics and markets.
• Entrepreneur Finder – Entrepreneur Finder works by matching your interests, information and requirements with the individuals or companies that you are searching for. After you create a profile, you will have free access to contact other members and take advantage of the user search and matching features.
• Square Guides – Square has a number of handy guides to help you through the process of creating and running a business. Their guides range from accepting payments to how to start a specific type of business.

Startup Financing

• 7 great ways to finance a startup – Need help on startup financing? Find everything you need to know about startup business financing and how to get your business the money it needs to get it.
• How Does Venture Capital Work – A simple guide on how venture capital works. firms and funds, and venture capital in a new company.
• Venture Capital on Alltop – The latest posts from top new sources on Venture Capital.
• Business Loans, Grants and Financing – Fill out this form to find financing for your small business. This form provides a guide to programs for which you may be eligible.

Business Planning

• Startup costs: The tools you need to launch an online business – Here are a collection of all the tools, and the costs, you need when starting an online business.
• Business, LLCs & Corporations Center – Starting a small business? Learn about LLCs, business plans, financing, and more. Everything you need to start and run a smart, successful small business.
• Compare Business Types – Use this business structure reference chart to compare common business types. Also see LegalZoom. Both can help you get started with your business filings.
• Bplans – Bplans offers free sample business plans, business plan software, business calculators, and articles on writing a business plan, starting a business, and other small business topics.
• How to Write a Business Plan – Whether you’re just starting out, need funding or want to monitor the health of your business, creating a business plan is your first step on the path to success. Read this extensive how-to to get started on your plan.
• A Simple Guide to Starting a Business – This comprehensive guide from Square, Inc. covers the basics of starting a small business. It explains how to write a business plan and properly register a business. You’ll also learn how to finance a new business through investors and loans.
• Ultimate Guide to Starting an Online Business – This 7-chapter free ebook covers business models, generating ideas, mindsets, and tools to get you started.

Podcasts

• The Startup Chat – Hear from entrepreneurs Hiten Shah and Steli Efti as they give current and aspiring entrepreneurs advice for navigating the startup world.
• Rework Podcast – A podcast from the creators of Basecamp. Covers bootstrapping, staying small, and growing slow. Also answers listeners questions.
• Marketing School – From Eric Sui and Neil Patel, this podcast strictly focuses on marketing. Good for beginners and those in the intermediate level of marketing knowledge.
• Startups For the Rest of Us – This podcast from Rob Walling and Mike Taber has been around since March 2010. A lot of good advice and lessons to learn here.
• The Smart Passive Income Podcast – Made for entrepreneurs starting an online business, this podcast has interviews from entrepreneurs who have successfully built their online business.
• The Foundr Podcast – This podcast contains interviews with entrepreneurs who have built, or are building, their businesses. New episodes posted every week.

Accounting & Bookkeeping

• Accounting Basics – Staying on top of your small business bookkeeping is important to your business financing. Learn how to manage your business’ bookkeeping and more.
• Basic Accounting – Advice for start-ups, entrepreneurs, and small business owners on basic accounting, including how to calculate and track cash flow, profitability, earnings, EBITDA, gross margin, and a business’s breakeven point.
• Best Accounting Software Comparisons and Reviews – Compare the top accounting and bookkeeping software products for your small business.
• 10 Accounting Basics You Need to Know to Run a Successful E-commerce Business – Going the e-commerce route? Here are the 10 basic accounting rules you’ll need to know.
• How to Hire an Accountant – Prefer to hand your books over to an independent accountant, or even hire your own accountant? Here’s what you’ll need to look for.

Employees

• How to Hire – Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, shares his advice on hiring.
• SBA on Hiring – When you’re ready to hire employees to work in your business, you’ll need to perform a few key steps to be in compliance with employment laws, and to ensure that your new employees understand the work for which they’ve been hired.
• Inc. on Recruiting and Hiring Employees – Advice for small business owners and entrepreneurs on recruiting and hiring employees,
• The Key Interview Tactic that will Help You Hire Great Employees – Jason Evanish shares the key interview tactic he’s learned over the years of hiring.
• Open Forum on Employee Management – Current archive of over 230 posts on employee management.
• Entrepreneur on Managing Employees – Managing employees can be a difficult task. Here is an online guide to managing employees.
• 10 Essential Tips for Managing Remote Employees – Running a company with remote employees? Here’s how to manage them effectively.

Taxes

• SBA on Taxes – This section helps you with every aspect of the taxes you must collect from your customers, including strategies for tax record-keeping.
• Small Business Tax Strategies – Tax planning is a year-round event if you want to minimize your business’s tax bill. Whether it’s surviving an audit, capitalizing on business deductions, or finding tax-friendly ways to run your business, this Inc.com guide can help reduce your tax obligations and make paying taxes less anxiety provoking.

Online Marketing

• The NOOB Guide to Online Marketing – If you’re new to online marketing, this post and infographic explains everything from analytics to social media marketing.
• The Beginners Guide to SEO – This online guide has 10 chapters covering search engine optimization from how search engines operate to tracking success.
• Introduction to Blogging – WordPress’ guide to blogging. Also don’t miss these 70+ Resources for Starting a WordPress Blog.
• Copywriting 101 – This tutorial is designed to get you up and running with the basics of writing great copy in ten easy lessons. Afterward, you’ll get recommendations for professional training, plus links to tutorials on SEO copywriting and writing killer headlines.
• Getting Started with Social Media – If you are new to social media or you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing, this guide is for you. It contains a number of chapters to help bring you up to speed.
• Getting Started with Google Analytics – Google Analytics is a free analytics tool to track your website’s visitors and traffic. Take a moment to configure your account and use this checklist as a reference to getting the most out of Google Analytics.
• The Smashing Magazine – Need resources on web design? The Smashing Magazine includes over a dozen blog posts dedicated to web design, CSS, WordPress, and much more.

Essential Software

• Comparison of Project Management Tools – Compare the top project management software products for your small business.
• Best CRM Software Comparisons and Reviews – Compare the top ten customer relationship management solutions for your small business.
• Microsoft Office – Everything you need for Microsoft Office including learning resources, templates, graphics, and more. Not ready for Microsoft Office? Try Open Office or Google Docs as free alternatives.
• Your Ultimate Payment Gateway Comparison Guide – Compare the top payment gateway services for your small business.

Small Business Blogs, News & Guides

• GrowthLab – From the team over at I Will Teach You to be Rich comes GrowthLab, which contains articles, videos, and courses about starting an online business.
• OPEN Forum – A wealth of resources for business owners – videos, articles, blogs, podcasts, and expert advice to boost your business, sponsored by American Express OPEN.
• NYT Small Business – Find breaking news & money news on mortgage rates, mutual funds, the stock market, bonds & notes, company research, earnings reports and market insight.
• Neil Patel Entrepreneurship Section – A collection of articles, videos, and podcast episodes about entrepreneurship.
• Inc. – Get advice, tools, and services that help your small business grow.
• Small Business Trends – Small Business Trends is the premier source of information, news and advice covering issues of key importance to the small business market.
• CNN on Small Business – Latest financial news on small businesses, including tips for small biz owners, small business loans, management, startups and entrepreneurs.
• Wall Street Journal’s Small Business How To Guide – WSJ small business guide covering how to fund, start, run, buy, sell and manage your small business.
• Alltop Startups – Alltopstartups is dedicated to profiling startups, reviewing new and top internet and mobile products.

Books for Small Business & Entrepreneurship

• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t – Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness — why some companies make the leap and others don’t.
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future – Entrepreneur (PayPal, Palantir) and investor (Facebook) Peter Thiel gives his startup advice to fellow entrepreneurs. You should read and heed the advice in this book.
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz shares his stories of entrepreneurship and lessons he’s learned in this instant classic.
• EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches – Whether you’re sitting at the CEO’s desk, the middle manager’s cubicle, or a card table in your living-room-based startup, EntreLeadership provides the practical, step-by-step guidance to grow your business where you want it to go.
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It – In this first new and totally revised edition of the 150,000-copy underground bestseller, The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business.
• Breakthrough Entrepreneurship – Using examples of companies large and small (Zipcar, Parenting Magazine, Wal-Mart, Google), Burgstone and Murphy teach readers to find and fill an unmet customer need, plan for profitability, strive for sustainability, establish credibility, gather necessary resources, lead and manage effectively, and maintain balance. (Publication Date: March 2012)
• The Art of the Start – This book from Guy Kawasaki is broken into 4 parts – conception, activation, proliferation, and obligation. Each part contains at least one chapter relevant to each part.
• Midas Touch: Why Some Entrepreneurs Get Rich-And Why Most Don’t – Through two of the world’s most successful and influential entrepreneurs’ real life stories of success, failure, perseverance and purpose, you’ll discover how they do it and whether or not you have what it takes to drive your own entrepreneurial success.
• Rework – The book from the cofounder and partner of Basecamp is a counterintuitive entrepreneurship book (in a good way).
• The Personal MBA – If you’re looking for an entry-level education into running a business, this is the book for you.

Business Lessons

• The Most Valuable Lesson I Learned as a CEO – LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner shares the lessons he’s learned while being CEO.
• 60+ Unexpected Business Lessons – In business, you can learn something new and unexpected at virtually any time or any place. With that in mind, the CarolRoth.com contributor network of entrepreneurs, advisors and experts have shared their most unexpected or unusual business lessons.
• 5 Best Business Lessons From Warren Buffett – Small-business owners can learn a lot from the leaders and innovators in big business, especially the Sage of Omaha.
• 10 Business Lessons From a Snarky Entrepreneur – Here are 10 positive lessons I learned from more than 12 years as an entrepreneur.
• 3 Business Lessons From The Godfather – So what can you learn from The Godfather? Here are some valuable lessons.
• 14 Inspiring Life and Business Lessons From Richard Branson – If there’s one guy I’d want to trade lives with for a day it would probably be Richard Branson. He’s made a fortune, has had a blast doing it, and still seems to be going strong. These are just 14 incredible life and business lessons from him that really inspired me.
• Top 10 Business Lessons from Bill Gates – He’s retired from his role as Microsoft’s CEO and instead devotes himself full-time to philanthropy through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Below, you’ll find 10 business lessons from the life of Bill Gates.
• 12 Business Lessons You Can Learn from Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos – Jeff Bezos is quite possibly the best living entrepreneur of our time. Who wouldn’t want to learn from the best?
• 11 Business Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Me – Although I’m young and haven’t been following Jobs’ career as intently as others, he has taught me a lot about business in the last five years. Here are 11 things I’ll never forget that Steve Jobs taught me.
• 14 Business Lessons For Every Entrepreneur – A quick and easy read with 14 tips for every entrepreneur.
• Top 30 Inspirational Entrepreneur Quotes – The following is a compilation of various motivational quotes from famous entrepreneurs and are in no particular order, nor are they a definitive list of the best quotes ever.

Social Entrepreneurship

• What is a Social Entrepreneur – Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.
• Forbes’ List of the Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs – For the first time in Forbes’ 94-year history, we’ve assembled the Impact 30: a list of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. We’re defining “social entrepreneur” as a person who uses business to solve social issues.
• Skoll Foundation – One of the leading foundations in the field of social entrepreneurship.
• Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship – The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship provides unparalleled platforms at the regional and global level to highlight and advance leading models of sustainable social innovation.
• PBS on Social Entrepreneurship – Social Entrepreneurship is still in its infancy and has a lot of growing up to do before it will have major impacts. Read updated news and resources about Social Entrepreneurship.
• Social Entrepreneurship on Alltop – The latest posts from top new sources on Social Entrepreneurship.

We know there are many more resources for entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses out there. Please share your favorites in the comments!

About the Author: Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, blogger, and social media enthusiast. Her blog Kikolani focuses on blog marketing, including social networking strategies and blogging tips.