REQUIRED READING

• The Art of the Start, Chapter 3, The Art of Writing a Business Plan.

REQUIRED READING

• 3 weeks to Startup, Chapter 15, Keeping Track
• 3 weeks to Startup, Chapter 17, Paying Taxes
• The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan,  Chapter 5, pages 194-210

REQUIRED READING

• 3 Weeks to Startup, Chapter 11, Spin the Web

• 3 weeks to Startup, Chapter 8, Build Your Team; and Chapter 9, Manage Your Team
• The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, pages 107-113 on metrics; pages 156-161 budgeting and payroll
• The Art of the Start, Chapter 6, The Art of Recruiting

(Optional Reading)

• Gather Your Team (a blog post)

• 3 Weeks to Startup, Chapter 5, Getting Financed.
• The Art of the Start, Chapter 5, The Art of Bootstrapping.
• The Art of the Start, Chapter 7, The Art of Raising Capital.

(Optional Reading)

• Life is Too Short to Deal with Non-Accredited Investors

• 3 Weeks to Startup, Chapter 16, Managing the Money
• The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, Chapter 5, pages 126-131; 148-161
• The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, pages 129-155, sales forecast

• PAYG, pages 129-155, sales forecast

• The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, 161-165, startup costs
• 3 Weeks to Startup, pages 23-26, startup costs

• 3 Weeks to Startup, Chapter 10, Branding
• 3 Weeks to Startup, Chapter 12, Spread the Word
• The Art of the Start, Chapter 8, the Art of Partnering
• The Art of the Start, Chapter 9, The Art of Branding

The readings for this class discuss marketing and branding. How are those concepts different from one another? What is the relationship?

(Optional Reading)

• The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan, Chapter 3, pages 83-92

Online resources include blog posts and articles from a variety of business and marketing experts, including Tim Berry, business-planning expert and original author of Business Plan Pro. These additional resources are provided to enhance the Required Reading for this class. They are recommended but optional.

PR vs. Advertising vs. Social Media vs. Branding

Marketing, advertising, social media, branding … it’s hard to draw the lines. What’s what? This post on Conversation Agent draws some useful distinctions. Taxonomy, the science of naming and classifying things, isn’t that important. But it helps to use the right words and phrases, so that other people know what you mean.

Great Marketing Lists and Resources

What a resource: check out this list of 250 top blog posts on advertising, marketing, media, and PR.  I got the tip from Seth Godin’s blog post of last week, which started with that list, and then highlighted his top 20 favorites from his blog.

Add Duct Tape Marketing to that list, and you have the ultimate course in 21st century marketing.

Thinking about the world of textbooks, it has to be hard to sell a marketing textbook these days, when new material is coming up every day in the blogs. And it has to be hard, from the professors’ point of view, to select and recommend marketing texts costing the students $100 or more, when the real world is happening so much faster on the Web.