Proven Entrepreneur Distills Step-By-Step Process to Start, Fund and Grow the Right Business for You
If you have the dream to be your own boss, become an entrepreneur and start your own business, there’s a new roadmap to help you achieve that goal.
Ed “Skip” McLaughlin was on the fast track, working for some of America’s best-managed corporations, but something was missing. He was hungry for control and independent success. Tired of working for others and dealing with office politics, he left his high-level corporate job to start his own business—not one, but two, in fact. McLaughlin’s new book, The Purpose Is Profit: The Truth about Starting and Building Your Own Business, co-authored with business strategist Wyn Lydecker, offers ambitious readers direct insight into the startup process, and how a startup really works—from finding funding to hiring the right teams to scaling the business and finally cashing out.
“When I wanted to leave my corporate job and begin my own business, most people told me I was crazy and that I’d fail,” said McLaughlin. “But my late friend and mentor, John Stanger, entrepreneur and past head of General Electric Credit, said, ‘Do it! Do it! Do it!’ So, I followed John’s sage advice, and I think you should too.”
The Purpose is Profit eliminates the mystery of becoming an entrepreneur. Part memoir, part manual, each chapter reveals a portion of McLaughlin’s personal journey on the road from big business to entrepreneurship and back again. The book includes the tools and processes you need to discover, define, differentiate, test, value, fund and operate your new business—including The Ten Commandments of Startup Profit. And, as a special feature, the Appendix includes two essential manuals: The Startup Roadmap and The Startup Funding Guide.
The Purpose is Profit tells the truth—the good, the bad and the ugly—about starting and growing your own business. In it you’ll discover:
- Distinctive competence trumps passion when starting a business
- Dynamic planning is the key to navigating the startup maze
- Entrepreneurial branding is as important as the product itself
- VCs vs. bootstrapping: Don’t give up control!
- The profit mandate: Factor profit into every decision from the get-go
- Sales pretenders vs. producers: how to identify and vet high performing sales pros
- Going, Going, Gone! Optimize sales price, but negotiate life beyond the sale
- Preserve the secret sauce: Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs
“Ed McLaughlin’s book ‘The Purpose Is Profit’ is a powerful guide for entrepreneurs at any stage. It combines the inside story with the tools you need to build a profitable business. I’ll be encouraging everyone with a startup dream to read this book.”
–John “Randy” MacDonald, former COO & CFO of TD Ameritrade
Ed McLaughlin is the founder & CEO of Blue Sunsets LLC, a real estate and angel investment firm based in Darien, CT. Previously, McLaughlin founded and served as chairman & CEO of United Systems Integrators (USI) Corporation, a corporate real estate outsourcing firm, sold to Johnson Controls (JCI) in 2005. In 2001, he earned Entrepreneur of the Year honors from Ernst & Young, and USI was named to the Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest growing companies. A member of the Board of Governors for Tufts Medical Center, McLaughlin founded its David E. Wazer Breast Cancer Research Fund. He graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, where he is a member of the Board of Trustees. Active in philanthropy, McLaughlin lives with his wife in Connecticut and has three adult children.
Wyn Lydecker is the founder of Upstart Business Planning, where she works with entrepreneurs to develop plans that answer the questions investors ask most often. Previously, she was Managing Director of Business Plans International in New York and Co-Director of the Small Business Resource Center at Norwalk Community College. Lydecker has an MBA in finance and marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She serves on the board of a local nonprofit she helped found, At Home In Darien. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and has two adult children.
The Purpose Is Profit: The Truth about Starting and Building Your Own Business will be available for purchase on Amazon and other booksellers on August 2, 2016.
