# Book Review: "Disciplined Entrepreneurship", by Bill Aulet

“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

I found this book laying on the shelf at Amazon Books in Georgetown, the first or second time that I’ve been there. What intrigued me about this book was the opinionated 24-step roadmap, which claimed to denote one path to entrepreneurial success. The graphics and layout were also pretty attractive too, and I think I’m kind of a sucker for that format.

What surprised me about this book what the checklist-like nature of what each step entails doing. I hate remembering to do things that I could otherwise put into a checklist (both at work and in personal life), and this kind of format appeals to me. You could take the advice written in this book and use it as a kernel to customize a checklist to your particular area of business. It also lists some hard numbers entrepreneurs should respect, for example:

• For Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business models, the ratio of the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer to the cost of customer acquisition (COCA) should be greater than or equal to 3:

$$\frac{LTV}{COCA} >= 3$$

• The actual COCA is usually 10-20x initial estimates.