Review:
"Mercifully free of Silicon Valley fairy tales. Schramm is interested in real people starting real companies: Readers will find most of his cases gratifyingly unfamiliar and generally relatable. Burn is a solid roundup of the current best thinking on startups, guiding new entrepreneurs in both introspection and execution." (Leigh Buchanan Inc.com)
“This business book lives up to its billing. . . . [Schramm] sets forth in real, practical, down-to-earth ways his knowledge of everything from debunking myths to identifying actions for success." (Booklist (starred review))
“New businesses are about great ideas, not great plans. Schramm tells it as it really happens.”
(Mitch Lowe, co-founder of Netflix, founder of MoviePass)
"Cerner, now with 25,000 associates, started with conversations over a picnic table in a public park. We never had a business plan. This book tells the real story of why most companies begin. If there is one book that aspiring entrepreneurs should read, this is it!" (Cliff Illig, co-founder, Cerner Corporation)
"Based on data and experience rather than hype, Burn the Business Plan is a timely antidote to the Silicon Valley mythology of startup wonder kids. I found this book deeply inspiring and confidence-building, and think all entrepreneurs, new and experienced, should read it." (Steve Watkins, founder of Lipomics Technologies and Verso Biosciences)
"Required reading for those who want to learn the real entrepreneurial process. It obliterates the useless conventional wisdom urged upon aspiring entrepreneurs of writing business plans and focusing on venture capital. This book, filled with stories of entrepreneurs just like you, is for the 99 percent of people who dream of starting a business but can’t find a practical roadmap." (Eugene Fitzgerald, Merton C. Flemings-SMA Professor of Engineering, MIT; founder, AmberWave Systems Corporation and The Water Initiative; and co-founder of 4Power and New Silicon Corporation)
"Business professors, many of whom never started a business, may hate this book because it overturns their view that writing a business plan is the key to success. Instead, this is a book filled with plain-spoken practical advice from one of the country’s most thoughtful experts on entrepreneurship who is both a scholar and successful entrepreneur." (Robert Litan, Director of Entrepreneurial Studies, Council on Foreign Relations)
"No other book builds its advice for would-be entrepreneurs on such a solid factual basis. Readers can explore how to prepare themselves to become entrepreneurs long before starting a company, the best time in their careers to start, and what it will take to make their companies not just survive but flourish. This is the best book that anyone thinking about starting a business should read." (Amar Bhide, Thomas Schmidheiny Professor at The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University; and author of The Origins and Evolution of New Businesses)