Bulldog: Spirit of the New Entrepreneur (Paperback)

Ellie Rubin, co-founder of Bulldog, embodies the essence of the next generation of entrepreneurs. In seven years, she has led her company from a traditional design service business into one of North America's leading multimedia productions houses and then on to pioneering one of the hottest new niches in software ' media asset management. From managing these radical shifts in company direction to opening offices in the Silicon Valley, from forging alliances with such high-tech players as Apple, Informix, Microsoft, Oracle, SGI and Tandem to raising over $15 million in outside investment, Ellie Rubin has piloted a roller-coaster business ride that will be instantly recognizable to any entrepreneur.

Well-known and admired for her ability to profit from the convergence of technology, design and business, as well as her intuitive skill in identifying opportunities and assessing risk, Ellie Rubin has propelled both herself and her company to the forefront of new media technology. Dedicated to evangelizing the process through the telling of her own story as well as through the experiences of other entrepreneurs she has met along the way, she has come to understand that every new entrepreneur is in the same business ' the business of change. By identifying the pivotal trigger points for successfully navigating through change, she explains how "entrepreneuring" is all about embracing risk and imbalance, about mastering interpretation ' not invention ' and delineates how to turn the relentless challenges that entrepreneurship demands into a journey that is graced with what she refers to as "angels of advantage":

• The new entrepreneur is someone who embodies the art of storytelling as a powerful leadership tool, providing a logical format for "creating something out of nothing"

• Without a fierce dedication to seeking out "champions" to help "connect the dots" and achieve one's goals, the entrepreneurial dream will never evolve beyond a great idea

•Magical Realism isn't just a literary term, it is the required state of mind of the new entrepreneur

• Cachet is the intangible side of marketing and must be written into any business plan; when it is present, magic prevails

• Converging technology is part of a continuum of business transformations; the new entrepreneur doesn't try to understand everything about convergence, but finds a point of entry right in the middle of the chaos it creates

• Trend-hopping is the first step toward creating a business plan

• For the new entrepreneur, the key idea is leverage, leverage, leverage. Not surprisingly, as the bulldog icon suggests, entrepreneuring also requires a certain level of tenacity and strength