andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business


HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business: Think big, buy small, own your own company
by Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

This book provides a methodology to find, evaluate, finance, and acquire a small business. The autonomy of entrepreneurship is compelling to many, but the failure rate of start-ups is high—more than two-thirds of them never deliver a positive return to investors. In contrast, this approach seeks to buy and manage an existing “enduringly profitable” business. The authors teach a course in entrepreneurship through acquisition at Harvard Business School.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

The Psychology of Money


The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
by Morgan Housel

Financial success is a soft skill, writes Morgan Housel, “where how you behave is more important than what you know.” This is a book about developing the mindset of a long-term investor, with a realistic attitude towards risk and reward. The book is conspicuously free of financial jargon and math. Here are some key points.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

How Finance Works


How Finance Works: The HBR Guide to Thinking Smart About the Numbers
by Mihir A. Desai

This is an outstanding book which presents some complicated topics in a clear, well-organized manner with real-world examples. The author, a professor of finance and taxation at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, includes some sidebar commentary from two CFOs, an investment banker, and a hedge fund manager.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

Small Business Finance and Valuation


Small Business Finance and Valuation
by Rick Nason and Dan Nordqvist

A finance professor and a CPA have teamed up to explain finance and risk management concepts specifically for small business, defined as assets under $5 million. They acknowledge that the objectives of small business owners often differ from those of a Fortune 500 CFO, whose focus is typically maximizing shareholder value. Freedom, peace of mind, and other quality of life issues may be more important to a small business owner.

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andreweverett360 Finance, interview

An interview with Alastair Thomson author of Cash Flow Surge

After posting more than 250 book reviews, I decided to try something new: an author interview on YouTube. I am grateful to Alastair Thomson for graciously sharing his wisdom on managing small and medium-sized businesses. Alastair has an accounting background, but this conversation is not about debits and credits. It’s about improving your business from the perspective of an experienced CEO and CFO. We cover cash flow, profit, customer experience, metrics, business ethics, marketing, quality, continuous improvement, front-line employees, growth, margins, inventory, and receivables.

An interview with Alastair Thomson, author of Cash Flow Surge
July 16, 2020 – 1 hour – Book Review – Amazon

Transcript

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

Cash Flow Surge: 101 No-Cost and Low-Cost Fast-Action Strategies to Boost Your Cash Flow


Cash Flow Surge: 101 No-Cost and Low-Cost Fast-Action Strategies to Boost Your Business Cash Flow
by Alastair Thomson (interview)

In college I took a course called Small Business Finance. The main thing I remember from this course is the emphasis on “cash flow, cash flow, cash flow.” Alastair Thomson is an accountant who has been a CFO and CEO of several businesses in the U.K., across variety of industries. He wrote this book for owners of small and medium-size businesses. While cash flow and profit are not the same thing, many of the ideas in the book can improve both.

The 101 chapters cover suppliers and expenses, customers and revenue, staffing and procedures, communication, insurance, logistics, contracts, and technology. Here are some snippets:

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

Financial Intelligence: A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean


Financial Intelligence: A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean
by Karen Berman and Joe Knight

This outstanding book teaches corporate financial literacy to nonfinancial employees. There are 33 short chapters grouped into sections covering the income statement, the balance sheet, cash, ratios, return on investment, and working capital. “You’ll learn how to decipher the financial statements, how to identify potential biases in the numbers, and how to use the information in the statements to do your job better.”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

How to Think About Money


How to Think About Money
by Jonathan Clements (1963-2025)

Jonathan Clements, a personal-finance columnist at The Wall Street Journal for some 20 years, advises how to think about work, debt, investments, and insurance at various stages of life. He puts an emphasis on preparing for retirement, starting at a young age.

“Chronologically, retirement might be our final financial goal, but we should always put it first. Amassing enough for a comfortable retirement is our life’s great financial task.” Given longer life expectancy, “we need to get ourselves on the right financial track as early in our adult life as possible, so we quickly achieve some measure of financial freedom.”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor


The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor
by Howard Marks

Howard Marks is the co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management and he ranks #374 on the 2017 Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. In this book he covers 20 topics: second-level thinking; market efficiency and its limitations; intrinsic value; the relationship between price and value; understanding risk; recognizing risk; controlling risk; market cycles; the pendulum; combating negative influences; contrarianism; finding bargains; patient opportunism; knowing what you don’t know; having a sense for where we stand; appreciating the role of luck; investing defensively; avoiding pitfalls; adding value; and pulling it all together.

Can you guess which one is the most important thing? 

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Finance

The Laws of Wealth


The Laws of Wealth: Psychology and the Secret to Investing Success
by Daniel Crosby

Psychologist Daniel Crosby works in the field of behavioral finance. “Given that you, as a member of the human family, have tendencies toward impatience, arrogance and a fetish for complexity, it is very likely that you will screw this up… At my last count, psychologists and economists had documented 117 biases capable of obscuring lucid financial decision-making.”

Crosby presents 10 rules of behavioral self-management.

Rule #1 – You Control What Matters Most. “The behavior gap measures the loss that the average investor incurs as a result of emotional responses to market conditions.” As an example, the author notes that the best performing mutual fund during the period 2000-2010 was CGM Focus, with an 18.2% annualized return; however the average investor in the fund had a negative return! The reason is that they tended to buy when the fund was soaring and sell in a panic when the price dipped. More on volatility later…

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