Disciplined Entrepreneurship book club questions

1. 1.

   Aulet argues that entrepreneurship is a discipline, not a born trait. How does that frame change how you think about who can or should start a company?

2. 2.

   Which step in the 24 do you think most founders in your industry skip or rush through, and what's the typical consequence?

3. 3.

   Walk through the beachhead market concept for a business you know. Is the beachhead as narrow and winnable as the framework suggests it should be?

4. 4.

   Aulet's persona work requires knowing a specific real person in depth. How well do you actually know your target customer, and what would it take to know them as well as the framework demands?

5. 5.

   Where does the total addressable market in your field get inflated or miscalculated, and who benefits from the inflation?

6. 6.

   The book is built on MIT's entrepreneurship curriculum. What does the academic framing add or remove compared to advice from a practitioner who has only built companies?

7. 7.

   How do you decide when you've won the beachhead market well enough to expand to adjacent markets?

8. 8.

   The full lifecycle use case covers everything from pre-purchase to disposal. Which part of that lifecycle does your company understand least well, and how much does that gap cost you?

9. 9.

   Competitive positioning in the book is rigorous and structured. How does that compare to how positioning decisions actually get made in companies you've been part of?

10. 10.

    Value-based pricing requires knowing what the use case is worth to the customer. What would you have to measure to set prices that way in your market?

11. 11.

    The 24 steps assume a linear process. What happens when the market forces you to revisit earlier steps while you're already executing on later ones?

12. 12.

    Aulet developed this framework at MIT. What does it capture well about technology startups that it might miss about other kinds of new ventures?

How to run the discussion

• Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
• Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
• Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
• Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.