Boom: Bridging the Opportunity Gap to Reignite Startups

by Craig Hall, Mark Zandi, PhD (Foreword by), Linden Gross (With)

Overview

There is an alarming decades-long decline of new business startups facing the United States today. Boom: Bridging the Opportunity Gap exposes the reasons behind this downward spiral and outlines strategies to solve the problem.

For decades, the United States has been experiencing a shocking decline in the number of new business startups...and it has gotten worse since the Great Recession. While new business formation in Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston is booming, entrepreneurship in most of the country—particularly rural regions—is declining. Things are even worse for women and people of color. This is of paramount importance to the United States because startups account for all new net job growth, champion innovation and strengthen our middle class.

From the perspective of an entrepreneur with more than fifty years of experience in diverse industries—from software, to real estate, to winemaking—author Craig Hall provides his expert evaluation on the challenges facing entrepreneurs today. After careful analysis defining the current environment for startups, Hall optimistically concludes with specific strategies for go-getters to successfully bridge the opportunity gap. We can, and must, reverse these trends in order to level the playing field for entrepreneurs to safeguard the future of the American Dream.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642931082
Publisher:	Post Hill Press
Publication date:	05/14/2019
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Craig Hall is an entrepreneur, civic leader, New York Times bestselling author and philanthropist. He formed HALL Group in 1968 in Ann Arbor, Michigan and today the company controls billions of dollars in assets and is made up of several subsidiary brands, with interests ranging from real estate development, ownership and management to financial lending and HALL Wines and other winery operations. Hall actively supports entrepreneurs and start-ups and together with his wife Ambassador Kathryn Hall, funded the Fulbright Kathryn and Craig Hall Distinguished Chair for Entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe. Hall also founded the Dallas Regional Office of NFTE (Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship). He has received a number of awards and honors, including being named a lifetime member of the Horatio Alger Association for Distinguished Americans in 2007. Most recently, Craig and Kathryn were co-awarded the 2017 Master Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Southwest Region from the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year program.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Introduction xv

Part I The Problem: The Business Environment Is Stacked Against Most Startups 1

Chapter 1 There's Something Happening Here 3

Chapter 2 Startups Should Be Booming! 26

Chapter 3 Entrepreneurs Make the World Go Round 43

Chapter 4 A Crusader as an Accidental Entrepreneur 61

Chapter 5 Extreme Positions 70

Chapter 6 Unintended Consequences 83

Chapter 7 Corporate Darwinism, Technology, and Greed 106

Part II Solutions: Building Bridges to Level the Playing Field 117

Chapter 8 Game-Changing Public Policies 119

Chapter 9 Can-Do Fever 147

Chapter 10 Shark Tanks, Mentors, and More 168

Conclusion 195

Appendix A Starter List of Organizations Supporting Entrepreneurship 200

Appendix B Starter List of University Programs Supporting Entrepreneurship 233

Endnotes 256

Acknowledgments 273