If you're looking for investment Ideas for Entrepreneurs, "I'm Thinking of You" by Elon Musk can be a good place to start. This is one of the newer<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}-->InventHelp self-help books on entrepreneurship written by the entrepreneur and founder. It's worth checking out, as it covers some important issues that will be important to entrepreneurs of all experience levels. In particular, Musk makes an excellent point about focusing on the "Wow Factor" in your business. He also goes into explaining what it's like being an inventor as well as how to handle failures.
This is not your grandfather's version of "How To Get Rich." However, it does contain some lessons that the self-made millionaires read to prepare themselves for their own successful careers. For example, there are chapters on branding, salesmanship, business development, leadership, and patents. Each chapter contains useful information regarding one or more sections. In particular, I found the chapters on leadership and patents to be very helpful.
The book has chapters on choosing a product or idea,<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}-->InventHelp marketing it, and selling it. However, as someone who has sold products in the past (good or bad), I felt the information inside did not go in depth enough in either direction. For example, on page 85, Musk writes "Just think about it. How many times have you heard about a great product that was a hot seller, but quickly lost its appeal because no one knew about it? What if you could fix that?"
Indeed, I would have liked more detail on why no one got excited about the product. This is what makes reading this book so valuable. Some people will tell you that they didn't feel like the idea was really practical. Still, others may not have seen the obvious problems with the product, but still say it would have been better with a different name, or a different<!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}-->Invent Help packaging.
Of course, we already know that most people would not think of this as a book with invention ideas. That's probably because it was published before many of the current ideas were considered, such as self-driving cars. That being said, there are still some valuable sections here that cover things like how to find good products/ideas, how to market them, and how to make sure they get noticed. It is rare to find a book that covers all the angles required for success.
As someone who has struggled to market my own ideas, I am glad that Musk has included marketing strategies in his book. He rightly lays out that there are two sides to the story when it comes to getting people interested in your product. On the one hand, the market is dominated by large corporations that can afford to pay thousands in advertising dollars to get everyone talking about their product. On the other hand, there are lots of people just like you and me, with small budgets who can't afford this expensive advertising.
The book also goes into explaining why it can be so difficult to sell an idea. That part was clearly written by someone who has struggled to sell many ideas. As well, the book touches on aspects of the business side as well, such as what to consider when approaching a company for funding. This is something that a lot of people overlook and are unaware of. The fact is, many wealthy people often approach companies for seed money and the reason is usually that they have a vision for the future of the company that could very well be nothing less than revolutionary.
The book ends by offering three suggestions for how to best approach others. They include building support, building relationships, and asking for help. Those three recommendations seem very relevant to the modern market, which is why I think it makes this book worth reading. The ideas included make sense and if you have any reservations about where to start or how to approach making money, this might be an excellent place to start.
