Dreaming of your own business? The best books to help with your business plan

For many February is the month when side hustles that were dreamed up over the summer holidays start to become a reality. Could it be that the novelty of returning to work and sharing holiday stories with colleagues has begun to wear off, or the idea of being in an office for 40 hours a week isn’t what you really dreamt of? Nevertheless, Team Booko has scoured the globe to bring you the best titles that will inspire you and help you to write a killer business plan and take that nerve-wracking leap.

Passion Purpose Profit: Sidestep the #hustle and build a business you love by Fiona Killackey

It’s one thing to have a business idea, or even to start a creative business. It’s quite another to scale it sustainably without increasing your financial and emotional stress. For most small business owners, what starts as something energising quickly turns into something overwhelming and energy depleting. You spend so much time in your business, it’s hard to find any time to work on your business. In this practical guide, experienced business coach and creative consultant Fiona Killackey shows you how to scale the business without scaling the stress. From validating your business idea (whatever stage in its development), mapping out your money and specifying your business goals, through to hiring staff and defining your marketing plan. Passion Purpose Profit gives you a clear understanding of where you’re going and exactly how you’ll get there. Complete with step-by-step tips and templates, as well as case studies of successful creative business owners, Passion Purpose Profit will have you empowered and excited about business again.

Fashion Entrepreneurship: Retail Business Planning by Michele M Granger, Tina M Sterling, and Ann Cantrell

Written by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs, the book explains management, market segmentation, financial statements, cash flow, accessing capital, e-commerce, and omni-channel retailing. A hypothetical business plan that builds with each chapter and examples of business models from Warby Parker, Birchbox, and Etsy, give you a framework for building a successful fashion company. Profiles of entrepreneurs and exercises in a book illustrated with 130 images show you how to apply the process to your own ideas.

The Multi-Hyphen Method: Work Less, Create More : How to Make Your Side Hustle Work for You by Emma Gannon

The world of work is changing so how do you keep up? You have the ability to make money on our own terms, when and where you want but where do you start? If you’ve been itching to convert your craft into a career, or your side-hustle into a start up, then The Multi-Hyphen Method is for you. In The Multi-Hyphen Method award-winning blogger/social media editor/podcast creator, Emma Gannon, teaches that it doesn’t matter if you’re a part-time PA with a blog, or a nurse who runs an online store in the evenings – whatever your ratio, whatever your mixture, we can all channel our own entrepreneurial spirit to live more fulfilled and financially healthy lives. The internet and our phones mean we can work wherever, whenever and allows us to design our own working lives. Forget the outdated stigma of being a jack of all trades, because having many strings to your bow is essential to get ahead in the modern working world. We all have the skills necessary to work less and create more, and The Multi-Hyphen Method s the source of inspiration you need to help you navigate your way towards your own definition of success.

Out of Office: Ditch the 9-5 and Be Your Own Boss by Fiona Thomas

Whether you are flirting with the idea of going freelance, just starting out or a few years down the line, this no-nonsense guide addresses all the questions you might have about working for yourself and making the most of life when you do. Fiona covers topics such as how to raise an invoice, submit a tax return, claim expenses and network, as well as why working from home is proven to have a positive impact on productivity and mental health. With a focus on understanding the ‘whys?’ just as much as the ‘hows?’, Fiona helps you dive into freelance life and pushes you to the next level, making sure you’re taking time to reflect on your business and your state of mind.

Move the Needle: Yarns from an Unlikely Entrepreneur by Shelley Brander

Shelley Brander was no stranger to the word “can’t.” You can’t be an athlete, you have asthma. You can’t be a successful copywriter, you’re a girl. Your son has autism, he can’t be cured. You can’t make a living with yarn. But she proved all her detractors wrong when she opened Loops, a local yarn store in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1994. Since then, Loops has thrived, expanding from a single storefront to a global creative brand with a passionate and active membership community of knitters, crocheters, and makers of all ages.

This book is about harnessing “the power of can’t” to pursue your life’s passions -both personal and professional- no matter how weird or impossible they may seem. We’re still living in a time where the entrepreneurial creative is too often told, “You can’t make a business out of that,” but in this book you will learn how to turn your can’ts into cans and make your creative side hustle your main gig, celebrate creativity and experimentation, accept failure as a part of the process, have hope against the odds, surround yourself with supportive people, cut ties with those who weigh you down, and believe in you and your weird, impossible dream!

Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0: Turning Your Business Into an Enduring Great Company by Jim Collins and Bill Lazier

From Jim Collins, the most influential business thinker of our era, comes an ambitious upgrade of his classic, Beyond Entrepreneurship, that includes all-new findings and world-changing insights. What’s the roadmap to create a company that not only survives its infancy but thrives, changing the world for decades to come? Nine years before the publication of his epochal bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins and his mentor, Bill Lazier, answered this question in their bestselling book, Beyond Entrepreneurship. Beyond Entrepreneurship left a definitive mark on the business community, influencing the young pioneers who were, at that time, creating the technology revolution that was birthing in Silicon Valley. Decades later, successive generations of entrepreneurs still turn to the strategies outlined in Beyond Entrepreneurship to answer the most pressing business questions. Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 is a new and improved version of the book that Jim Collins and Bill Lazier wrote years ago. In this upgraded edition, Jim Collins honours his mentor, Bill Lazier, who passed away in 2004, and re-examines the original text of Beyond Entrepreneurship with his 2020 perspective. The book includes the original text of Beyond Entrepreneurship, as well as four new chapters and fifteen new essays. Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 pulls together the key concepts across Collins’ thirty years of research into one integrated framework called The Map. The result is a singular reading experience, which presents a unified vision of company creation that will fascinate not only Jim’s millions of dedicated readers worldwide, but also introduce a new generation to his remarkable work.

Enjoy!