The American Dream: How Do You Start or Buy a Business with None of Your Own Cash.

• Author: Holtzman, Henry
• Position: Reaching the American Dream. (Required Reading - Review

"The American Dream: How Do You Start or Buy a Business with None of Your Own Cash"

Dan Amzallag

Pro-Ace International Publishing Rockyille, Md. 2001, 207 pages, $16.99

There ought to be an added phrase to the book's subtitle that cautions: "...while Risking Your Entire Reputation and Most of Your Credit Worthiness for the Next Five Years."

Yes, there are successful entrepreneurs who have become very wealthy. Bill Gates (founder Microsoft) and the late Sam Walton (founder of Wal-Mart) are only two modem examples. There are many more and all of them have several traits in common: they are highly focused, "Type A" personalities who overcome incredible roadblocks with creative thinking. For example, during the 19th Century one of them established the model for the modem corporation by changing corporate law in one state. He did it by virtually bribing an entire state's legislature.

They also share a common experience: business boot camp. Not the U.S. Marine Corps variety, nor even what passes as a supplement to basic management training. This boot camp is the kind that leaves you broke and panting on the floor as one of the nine-in-10 owners whose businesses go belly-up during the first two years. The one in 10 who can rise again have learned to apply more lessons than they ever teach in business school. Lesson One: cut the deck even when it's your mom who deals the cards. In other words, leaven your enthusiasm with sensible caution. This can be harder than it sounds among budding entrepreneurs who have yet to endure their first boot camp.

These are precisely the points that Dan Amzallag fails to emphasize in "The American Dream." In all fairness, perhaps he shouldn't. There are more than enough obstacles and pessimists to go around since the high-tech balloon was punctured nearly two years ago.

In addition, Amzallag's advice and approach to working with "other people's money" is as true today as it ever was. In fact, the techniques work as well today as they did in ancient Babylon.

Although much of the advice early in the book is in the category of being old news, the author is able to finesse this because of the way the book is organized. The chapters are arranged in a logically sequenced question-and-answer format. Each chapter also offers space for the reader to make notes and provides a summary of key points.

Much to the author's credit, he has written a book that goes somewhat beyond the standard type of primer on starting a business.

He...