Start Small FINISH BIG: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start and Run Your Own Business

Front Cover
Mandevilla Press, Nov 20, 2012 - Business & Economics - 344 pages

At age seventeen Fred Deluca borrowed $1,000 from a a friend-and srarted SUBWAY(R). Today, with more than 38,000 stores in one hundred countries and annual sales exceeding $16.6 billion, Fred DeLuca's SUBWAY is a success story with a message... 

START SMALL FINISH BIG

Publishers Weekly Review:

DeLuca was only 17 when he started what is now the Subway restaurant chain in 1965; he needed money to attend college and a friend offered to back him with $1,000 to start a sandwich shop in Bridgeport, Conn. That beginning led DeLuca to an enormously successful career: in addition to being president of the chain, he runs MILE, a nonprofit organization that offers loans to entrepreneurs. According to DeLuca, there are 15 essential principles for anyone starting a small business, some of which, DeLuca confesses, he learned the hard way (he had never made a submarine sandwich before opening day of his first shop). Among these pillars: Believe in Your People; Never Run Out of Money; Keep the Faith; and Profit or Perish. DeLuca uses his own business experience as well as that of other successful entrepreneursAe.g., the founders of Kinko's and Little Caesar'sAin addition to those of less well-known business people. Written in a conversational style, the advice isn't especially original or creative. However, would-be millionaires who are sitting at their kitchen table wondering if they should take that big step and start a business will find the book both instructive and inspirational. Agent, Bob Diforio.

Library Journal
DeLuca, co-founder in 1965 of SUBWAY Restaurants and founder in 1996 of the Micro Investment Lending Enterprise (MILE), a nonprofit organization making microloans to entrepreneurs/microentrepreneurs, has written this humorous, down-to-earth guide to success as a small business owner. Coauthor Hayes is a writer (Computer Architecture and Organization, 1998), public speaker, and business trainer. Each chapter describes one of DeLuca's 15 key lessons and is illustrated with a real-life case study. None of the people in these cases is a household name, but businesses such as Kinkos, Little Caesars, and SUBWAY are. DeLuca doesn't claim that his guides form a master plan for success, but he optimistically believes that anyone can become Bill Gates, Lillian Vernon, or Henry Lay and that his lessons will increase the chances. His book also promotes and supports MILE, and the last chapter and appendix are devoted to information about it and its programs. Recommended for most small business collections.
Susan C. Awe, Univ. of New Mexico Lib., Albuquerque

 

Selected pages

Contents

Chapter twO The Fifteen Key Lessons
18
Chapter three My Story
27
Chapter FOur Start Small
66
Chapter Five Earn a Few Pennies
82
Chapter Six Begin with an Idea
93
Chapter Seven Think Like a Visionary
103
Chapter eight Keep the Faith
119
Chapter nine Ready Fire Aim
135
Chapter twelve Continuously Improve Your Business
183
Chapter thirteen Believe In Your People
199
Chapter FOurteen Never Run Out of Money Borrow Before
221
Chapter FiFteen Attract New Customers Every Day
238
Dont Give Up
258
Chapter Seventeen Build a Brand Name
272
Chapter eighteen Opportunity Waits for No One
287
Chapter nineteen Take the First Bold Step
307

Chapter ten Profit or Perish
150
Chapter eleven Be Positive
169
aCknOwledgmentS
314
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start--and Run--your Own ...
Fred DeLuca
No preview available - 2009
Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start--and Run--your Own ...
Fred DeLuca,John Phillip Hayes
No preview available - 2000
Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start--and Run--your Own ...
Fred DeLuca,John Phillip Hayes
No preview available - 2001
View all »

Common terms and phrases

advertising Amato’s asked bank better borrow brand bread build called Campus Concepts challenge cleaning company’s continued cost couldn’t created customers Cynthia David decided Detroit Tigers dyslexia Earl earned employees entrepreneurs eventually expand explains Fifteen Key Lessons finish big franchise friends goal going graduate Grameen Bank hired idea invested Jamie Jani-King kids Kinko’s knew learned loan look Mary Ellen microcredit microenterprise microentrepreneurs microlenders Mike Ilitch Mike’s million months Morales moved Muhammad Yunus needed never night operate opportunity Paul Orfalea Pete Pete’s pizza polygraph profit realized restaurant Rite Aid says sell small business sold someone story submarine sandwich Subway Subway Restaurants successful talk tell Terri there’s things thought told Tomima TomKats TopsyTail Victoria’s Secret wanted wasn’t week world’s you’re Zig Ziglar

About the author (2012)

 Frederick DeLuca was born in Manhattan in 1948, and grew up outside Albany in Amsterdam, New York. While living there, his family met Peter Buck, a nuclear physicist. The DeLucas moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, while Buck had a home in nearby Armonk, New York.

In 1965, DeLuca was preparing to attend the University of Bridgeport, where he wanted to study medicine. He had gotten a job in a hardware store to put himself through college, and was only making enough to buy lunch at fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s. 

This experience and his interest in medicine gave him the idea of running a "fast-food venture that provided a healthier, less fattening bill of fare."

He told his idea to Buck, who had been invited to a DeLuca family barbecue. Buck loaned him $1,000. This was enough to open a sandwich shop in Bridgeport, which he named Pete's Submarines, after Buck.

But in the radio ad he bought, people were confused and thought he was saying, "Pizza Marine," and were surprised when they showed up and saw a sandwich shop instead. The name was changed to "Pete's Super Submarines." Later, thinking of the transportation system in nearby New York, DeLuca changed the name to play-on-words "Pete's Subway."

In 1966, DeLuca and Buck had made enough money to open a second store, but determined that each of the first two had been in a poor location. Remembering the real-estate mantra of "Location, location, location," they found a better place to open their third store, and that store remains open today.

DeLuca continued to attend the University of Bridgeport while running SUBWAY and, making a bit of a shift from his original medical-school plan and getting his degree in psychology.

 By 1973, he and Buck had 16 locations in Connecticut, and the next year they began franchising, dropped the Pete's name and became just "Subway," and introduced the white, yellow and green logo that would become the company's most familiar trait. Buck's initial investment in DeLuca has grown to over 41,000 franchised locations in 109 countries around the world.

Bibliographic information

TitleStart Small FINISH BIG: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start and Run Your Own Business
AuthorsFred De Luca, John P. Hayes
PublisherMandevilla Press, 2012
ISBN1627040064, 9781627040068
Length344 pages
Subjects › 

Business & Economics / Franchises
Business & Economics / Small Business
  
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