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Rating: 
Summary: Interesting in parts
Review: Book is interesting in parts. Heavy on anecdotes, light on data and insight.
Rating: 
Summary: Freshly Brewed Insight
Review: I love this book. I've been a part of two startup companies over the last five years and I think the author really 'gets' it. She made the decision to divide the book by themes rather than by case studies (though there are mini-studies sprinkled throughout) and this serves the book well. She shares her analysis and illustrates her theses by example. I have found this to be rare in the business press which is too often a collection of case studies with minimal connective tissue. I don't know how Esser won the trust of the entrepreneurs she interviews but she clearly has. And not by promising them rose-colored prose; she respects the technical and financial individuals she writes about without automatically accepting what they have to say at face value. I've read this book straight through twice and recommended it to my friends - and both technies and money people have enjoyed it. I'd suggest it to anyone who wants to read an insider view of how the high-tech entrepreneur world that is thoughtful and balanced rather than worshipful or cynical.
Rating:
Summary: Educational and Entertaining
Review: Teresa Esser has provides an insightful collection of anecdotes, horror stories, case studies and advice from seasoned veterans of the dot-com boom. Though she admits she's not the entrepreneurial type, her marriage to a successful entrepreneur gives her a unique vantage point on the joys and frustrations of starting a high-tech company with little more than a dream. This fun, quick read contains valuable tips on hiring a good lawyer, pitching ideas to VCs and surviving both failure and success. Much of the advice is still practical, even though the Internet bubble has burst. However, some of the interviews retain a bit of the breathless hype of the days when anyone with a domain name could land first-round VC funding. We from getAbstract recommend this book to would-be entrepreneurs, especially corporate types who are thinking of launching their own companies, and to those who want a level-headed view of the mysterious workings of high-tech startups and their funding.
Rating:
Summary: Documenting an Era
Review: Teresa Esser's book is an earnest attempt to document the elements of success in the high-tech sector, and to provide some practical advice to budding entrepreneurs on navigating the treacherous waters of venture capital. With portraits of successful entrepreneurs, a limning of the hothouse environment of geek hangouts such as the Muddy Charles pub near MIT, and practical advice on how to speak, dress, and act, Esser is a combination of Miss Manners and Woodward/Bernstein to the socially underdeveloped yet technologically precocious budding entrepreneur seeking validation for his "deformation professionelle." Perhaps the most useful chapters are "What Venture Capitalists Look for When They Evaluate New Proposals", which will be welcomed, I imagine, by desperate fund seekers as well as jaded VCs, and "Entrepreneurs and the Media" where--believe it or not--journalists covering the high-tech sector are shown to be even less competent than some entrepreneurs. Fortunately, the worst people in both groups were sucked down the drain in the dotcom crash. The Venture Cafe is directed at a particular audience, but does provide business insight for those outside the tech world. The anecdotal information is a nice departure from dry academic studies of high-tech entrepreneurs, and Esser was able to publish recently enough to address the slowdown in the sector if not the crash. She has developed an approach and a perspective that will be useful in writing a sequel, perhaps drawing out the lessons of the late 1990s and looking at the successes of the subsequent decade.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I had read this book before starting a company...
Review: The Venture Cafe is a really fun book about the stories
and people who make high-tech entrepreneurship happen.
Teresa Esser blends clear-eyed objectivity with wisdom
gleaned from countless conversations with in-the-trenches
high-tech entrepreneurs. She explains high-tech entrepreneurship in a way that
offers relevant lessons for everyone from would-be
entrepreneurs to seasoned venture capitalists. Despite the fact that I have been involved with
entrepreneurship for years, I found myself learning
things I never knew. I learned how entrepreneur
Philo T. Farnsworth struggled for years starting in
the early 1920s to develop a business around his
invention of electronic television -- and was nearly
put out of business because of patenting issues
and cutthroat competition. Who would have known
that TV did not come from RCA? It made me wonder whether today's innovators will
have the knowledge and insights necessary to avoid
what happened to Farnsworth. With this book, they'll
get the knowledge they need. From practical "how to" insights about structuring a company
or choosing co-founders based on personality,
to funny and personal stories about company founders
themselves, this book is a unique look at the human
part of the entrepreneurship equation - the people
who are driven to succeed against odds that may be stacked
against them, or to take risks and innovate despite a
downturn in the economy. Often the knowledge a person needs to start a company is
difficult to learn on the job. Had I been able to read
this book beforehand, I would have gained insights
I could only have gathered from experience or
from asking other entrepreneurs. I loved hearing how other entrepreneurs deal with
what I deal with - the challenges of balancing business
and family, the risks and rewards of leaving the safety
of corporate jobs to strike out on one's own. These stories are encouraging, engaging and exhilarating.
Reading The Venture Cafe makes me want to start another company!
Rating:
Summary: The Venture Cafe offers a great cup of Joe
Review: There are many business books out there that discuss entrepreneurship, so why do we need another? The Venture Cafe offers a different brew. For those who live too far from Cambridge to experience networking events like evenings at the Muddy Charles Pub or gatherings of the MIT entrepreneurial committee, this book provides the next best thing to being there. Teresa Esser weaves together a tapestry of personalities, stories and anecdotes that reveal many of the subtleties and hidden pitfalls that both would-be entrepreneurs and those going at it again could learn from. The beans roasted for this brew include numerous inventors, entrepreneurs, angel investors, and vulture capitalists that make up the dramatis personae of the entrepreneurship theater that performs day in and day out in and around MIT. The most important message Teresa Esser brings to light is that no matter how great your idea is, no matter if you have "an idea whose time has come," if you don't have ALL of your ducks lined up in a row, you are likely to fail. Like serving the perfect cup of coffee (the venture cafe analogy works at so many levels), it requires more than just a good idea, it requires a source of quality beans, reliable deliveries of raw materials, a method of roasting, the right brewing equipment, meticulous quality control, sufficient capital, the right marketing, unwavering commitment ... the list goes on and on and on. Sip from Teresa's cup and you will come away a great deal wiser. It's like spending an afternoon at the cafe surrounded by the best and brightest entrepreneurs. I'll have a double latte, no foam, what can I get for you?
Rating:
Summary: Practical wisdom and insight into the entrepreneurial spirit
Review: What a refreshing alternative to cookbook business journalism and texts! Teresa Esser provides a unique look at the world of high tech entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial path from conception to design and development and bringing new ventures to market. As the spouse of Pehr Anderson, MIT-trained entrepreneur and co-founder of NBX Corporation, Esser brings direct experience with the world of high tech start-ups. She knows and has interviewed the players--techno-geeks and boot-strap business types, contract lawyers, venture capitalists--and shares their wisdom in their voices. This book tells it like it is: how-to and how not to, what it's really like to walk the 'venture' path. It's an exciting read that provides a wonderful look into the lives and the spirit that fuels innovation in the high tech world. Recommended for those considering a start-up as well as arm chair observers!
Rating:
Summary: Captures the happenstance nature of entrepreneurship
Review: What separates a successful entrepreneur from an unsuccessful one? The successful ones have these seemingly serendipitous things happen to them - meeting the right investors, hiring the right employees, getting supportive beta customers, getting prominent play in the press. Teresa Esser's point is that what often seems to happen by happenstance, isn't so random at all. She believes that successful entrepreneurs have put into practice - knowingly or unknowingly - the "ideal" of what she calls "The Venture Café." One of Esser's subjects, Joost Bonsen (who runs informal networking events in Cambridge, MA), has the book's best take on what a Venture Café is: "It is a venue for adventurous thinking or a cauldron of creative ferment. Who knows what will pop up from it? In fact, nothing is likely to. But you never know. When it does happen, it does have powerful consequences." Bonsen goes on to add that his role is to be "a catalyst - some type of connection machine. An engine of introduction. A tangible mechanism by which two people who ought to connect do." Esser spends the book driving to the heart of how best to capture and create the essence of what Bonsen describes. Let other books tell you how to put together a business plan, how to sell your products, and other "blocking and tackling" elements of a start-up. Teresa Esser's fine work captures a key piece of the puzzle that you you'd be crazy to ignore.
Rating:
Summary: Captures the happenstance nature of entrepreneurship
Review: What separates a successful entrepreneur from an unsuccessful one? The successful ones have these seemingly serendipitous things happen to them - meeting the right investors, hiring the right employees, getting supportive beta customers, getting prominent play in the press. Teresa Esser's point is that what often seems to happen by happenstance, isn't so random at all. She believes that successful entrepreneurs have put into practice - knowingly or unknowingly - the "ideal" of what she calls "The Venture Café." One of Esser's subjects, Joost Bonsen (who runs informal networking events in Cambridge, MA), has the book's best take on what a Venture Café is: "It is a venue for adventurous thinking or a cauldron of creative ferment. Who knows what will pop up from it? In fact, nothing is likely to. But you never know. When it does happen, it does have powerful consequences." Bonsen goes on to add that his role is to be "a catalyst - some type of connection machine. An engine of introduction. A tangible mechanism by which two people who ought to connect do." Esser spends the book driving to the heart of how best to capture and create the essence of what Bonsen describes. Let other books tell you how to put together a business plan, how to sell your products, and other "blocking and tackling" elements of a start-up. Teresa Esser's fine work captures a key piece of the puzzle that you you'd be crazy to ignore.
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