Low Risk High Reward by Bob Reiss, with Jeffrey L. Cruikshank

The book begins with a foreword by Howard H. Stevenson, who is a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, commenting on the relationship that he has with Bob Reiss, the author of the book, and what makes Bob uniquely qualified to write a book around the topic about entrepreneurship. He speaks to Bob’s history as a serial entrepreneur and that his point of view is based on insights he’s gained through rigorous experiences starting multiple businesses.

One of the things I enjoy about Bob’s point of view is that it’s very grounded around his perspective. When he generalizes, he speaks to his habits and goals when building a new company, as they’ve worked for him and speaks from his point of view. For instance, he largely claims that he’s a small business entrepreneur, where he loves to build businesses to a medium market, which he loosely defines, but points to not carrying his companies to a large IPO, and that he prefers that. 

Howard Stevenson notes that Bob doesn’t boil down his lists to a few overarching ideas (like a “Seven Habits” or “Seven Key Points”, but creates large lists that encompass many different topics. This book doesn’t follow an “academic” format of writing, which is a bit refreshing. 

In the intro, Bob spends time to, not necessarily dispel, but clarify that building a successful business is rooted in minimizing risk at every point, through his philosophy of Low Risk, High Reward (LRHR) entrepreneurship. He defines entrepreneurship, in itself, as a way of thinking and a set of behaviors, rather than a personality type, and uses entrepreneurs as opportunity driven and look to create new value, versus managers who are resource driven, and usually act in a way to preserve value and extend it. 

He also speaks to the payoffs of entrepreneurship, defining money and power as tools that accentuate more important quality of life factors like balance, family, happiness and giving to others, while also acknowledging that luck plays a phenomenal factor in his success as well. I think the pursuit of those factors are a just and worthy cause, and excites me to build an entrepreneurial mindset.