Entrepreneurship: The Bottom Line

About the Book

It’s been reported that up to 98% of all businesses in America fail. In fact, in a well-circulated Youtube video, “Shift Happens”, it is reported that China and India have more honor students than we have students. In short, the video explained how the Global Economy is shifting the power away from the U.S. How can this problem be solved when the U.S. government spends less than 70 million dollars a year (less than half of what Nintendo spends annually on marketing) on a failing public education system? How can students, parents, and/or aspiring entrepreneurs obtain the tools necessary to conquer this problem?

The answer lies within our school systems’ ability to innovate.

Lake Highland Preparatory School is accepting this challenge.

In January of 2008, seventeen high school students formed a limited liability company to produce the ultimate entrepreneurial handbook- Entrepreneurship: The Bottom Line. This manual/journal captures the real world challenges of entrepreneuralism in a clear, concise and compelling story, presenting how most of these challenges can be overcome. This is a prime example of what entrepreneurialism is all about.

About the Author

For over seven years I have had the pleasure of working with young students throughout Orange County, Florida through a volunteer program provided by Junior Achievement. I have always been passionate about education but never so much as when my wife informed me that we were having a baby. I met with several administrators from Lake Highland about a class on entrepreneurship and was very excited when they invited me to help them create a new curriculum on business and entrepreneuralism. However, the idea of just teaching a class on entrepreneuralism just didn’t feel right with me given the caliber of talent at Lake Highland. I have volunteered multiple times at Lake Highland and felt that if ever there was a campus to produce the next Bill Gates, Lake Highland was it. On the morning that my daughter was born, November 6, 2007 (I couldn’t sleep), I decided that if I was going to really prepare these young students for the real world, they needed to start a real company and face the real challenges of entrepreneurship. I was convinced that if any school could pull this off, it was Lake Highland. The students’ talent and passion for running a business far exceeded my expectations. I am now even more convinced that a Lake Highland student will very soon run a company that will change our world. I want to thank everyone at Lake Highland for committing to this experiment and also thank the vendors, speakers and investors who contributed to the success of this project. We hope this book inspires other young entrepreneurs to follow their dreams.