While the term unfair advantage may not sound sporting, it's all on the up-and-up in this primer for new business ventures. Nesheim (High Tech Start Up) has counseled more than 300 start-ups that have raised more than $2 billion in financing. So he has credibility when it comes to demonstrating how entrepreneurs can create and sustain competitive advantage for their companies. This practical guide defines the various components of unfair advantage, like delivering superior value and differentiation. It then goes on to explore ways to create unfair advantage and apply it. Nesheim shares his insights into what venture capitalists like to see and hear in business pitches and business plans. While the concepts he presents are hardly new, he has a colorful way of illustrating his "how-to" manual with real-world and hypothetical scenarios, complete with geeky dialog, name-dropping, and cautionary lessons. To demonstrate the importance of his concepts, Nesheim shows how real companies used their unfair advantage to weather the dot-com storm while their peers floundered.

Recommended for public library business collections.-Carol J. Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin Lib., Whitewater Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.