Young Biz You're young and ambitious, with a great idea for a new software program, a downtown music zine, or a better drink than Snapple, but how to turn your dream idea into a thriving business? Forget about the ultra-conservative outfits who scoffed when you brought your cool idea to their door! As Fortune magazine's Ron Lieber shows, you can actually use your youth, inexperience, and lack of money to your advantage and capitalize on your resources to trump the corporate system, be your own boss, and transform your vision entrepreneurial in reality. Based on interviews with more than thirty young independent entrepreneurs who have developed some of today's most interesting, even revolutionary, companies and products, Upstart Start-Ups! provides essential tips and information that will get your Nantucket nectars or magnetic poetry off the ground. Discover: The myths and realities you need to know about starting a business under 30 How to generate your first brainstorm and how to act on a good idea How to overcome the stigmas of youth and inexperience and make your age work your advantageHow to develop a realistic business planWhere and how to get the financial support you needHow to establish credibility for your company or product with consumersModels that have proven successful and how to apply them to your visionTwenty-six-year-old Ron Lieber writes for Fortune magazine and is co-author of the New York Times business bestseller Taking Time Off. He regularly appears on national television and radio to discuss career issues, business management, and his recent articles. Publishers Weekly: Fortune writer Lieber (who is 26) offers this chatty guide to people under 35 who don't have rich parents to help them get started. It distills the hard-won insights of 34 young entrepreneurs who have launched successful startups, an online personal finance forum, an art gallery, a wine distribution, an original Mexican restaurant, a chain of music stores based in the airport, among others and they kept leaving. Their first-hand experience is the core of the book, which follows the approach of Lieber's Taking Time Off, which advised college students by example how to carefully tune in and temporarily drop out. While this is not a comprehensive, detailed manual, expert advice from Lieber's interviewees conceptually acquaints beginners with a variety of standard business practices. They offer basics like "Do What You Know," as an acne-prone woman now runs a thriving skin-care spa, to do-it-yourself market research, like that of a swimsuit designer bathroom who apprenticed in retail to find out what women really wanted.