Business for Bohemians by Tom Hodgkinson, reviewed

By @SimonCocking. Business for Bohemians, Live Well, Make Money, reviewed.

Everyone should work for themselves. But don’t cashflow forecasts, tax returns and P&Ls all sound a bit of a faff?

Fear not: help is at hand. In Business for Bohemians, Tom Hodgkinson combines practical advice with laugh-out-loud anecdote to create a refreshingly candid guidebook for all of us who aspire to a greater degree of freedom in our working lives.

Whether you dream of launching your own startup or profiting from your creativity in your spare time, Business for Bohemians will equip you with the tools to turn your talents into a profitable and enjoyable business. Accounting need no longer be a dark art. You will become au fait with business plans and a friend of the spreadsheet. You will discover that laziness can be a virtue. Above all, you will realise that freedom from the nine-to-five life is achievable – and, with Hodgkinson’s comforting, pragmatic and extremely funny advice at hand, you might even enjoy yourself along the way.

As we continue our ongoing exploration into what the future of work might look like this seemed like an interesting book to read. Hodgkinson comes from a well versed perspective on what it’s like to try, and mostly, succeed in a few different ventures.

At times it can seem little relentless in terms of the number of famous and well connected friends he refers to that he received advice from. Still they all seemed to give him pretty smart and relevant advice, so fair enough. If you have that dream of opening  a cafe / wineshop / bookshop, all of the above, or something else, this is a useful book to read first. It will help you to question and reassess if you are really ready for all the work it will require, and the range of annoying people you may have to deal with. The book is an enjoyable read into stripping away the romanticism from the reality of ‘going it alone / telling the man to stuff it’. If you’re still keen by the end of the book then he will have done a good job of illustrating the pros and cons of starting your own venture(s).

Whether we like it or not, it is quite likely that more and more of the work that is available will go to freelancers and small niche service providers. A lot of the tips, insights and lessons learned here will stand you in good stead if or when you find yourself going down that road too.

It was an enjoyable read and it will be interesting to see how the Idler business venture progresses.

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.net or on Twitter: @SimonCocking