Colin C. Campbell describes himself as a “serial entrepreneur.” He’s started, scaled, and exited more than a dozen companies, so it makes sense that he titled his book Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. After building up companies that are collectively worth close to a billion dollars and creating a community of entrepreneurs, Startup Club, on the social media platform Clubhouse, his book distills his years of experience and wisdom into advice any entrepreneur can implement for themselves.

The idea for the book came about when Campbell was invited to speak at the Entrepreneurial Masters Program at MIT. Planning his talk inspired Campbell to ask himself what exactly he was doing that led to his string of successes. He looked back on both his achievements and his failures, hunting for patterns he could share onstage at MIT:

In trying to figure this out, I started having conversations with other serial entrepreneurs about whether they had observed similar patterns in their own successes. Through Startup Club on Clubhouse, I also found myself learning from our members and discovering new ingredients that needed to be added to the recipe, things I had never noticed or experienced before.

In the journey of serial entrepreneurship, you’re going to need others around you for counsel, whether in vetting your idea, getting legal or financial advice, or negotiating the sale of your company. This book is a guide to point you in the right direction on your unique journey and to help you answer the questions you’ll encounter.

All this is to say that I’m not here to proclaim, “I have all the answers” or “I am the expert at everything in this book”; rather, it’s to share what I have experienced in life starting, scaling, exiting, and repeating—both the right way and the wrong way. I present not only my experiences but also what I’ve learned from the dozens of serial entrepreneurs and experts we have spoken with in over hundreds of Startup Club interviews in the hopes that it will help you and other entrepreneurs find and accelerate your success—with fewer mistakes along the way.

Kirkus Reviews says that “useful info and a readable structure make for a top-notch how-to for business owners,” and awarded Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. with a starred review, naming it one of the Best Indie Books of 2024. It has also won 14 international awards, is an Amazon bestseller, and, according to Campbell, has made a difference in his readers’ lives, even after being on the shelves for only a year.

Campbell, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says there are a few segments of the population who can most benefit from Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.: aspiring entrepreneurs, established entrepreneurs, and exiting entrepreneurs. “This is a how-to book on how to start a business,” he says, but as the title suggests, Campbell takes entrepreneurs through the process all the way to the exit point.

After losing exorbitant amounts of money in the early 2000s dot-com crash, Campbell got a lot of experience from failure. After building himself back up from that disaster, he had to learn a different way of not just growing a company but growing it sustainably, so that he could leave and start a successful process all over again. “You can spend your entire life building a company and then blow it,” he says. “You have to learn how to scale properly, and how to exit at the right time.”

As you’d expect, a book that covers that much ground has to be pretty big, and Campbell says that Forbes told him the physical copy was “double the size of any of their other books.” But Campbell is particularly proud of the physical copy, which was designed to be easily digestible despite its vast wealth of information, with color-coded pages to visibly separate each section.

When embarking on the project of writing a book, Campbell noticed that it was very similar to starting a business in that everyone around him told him he couldn’t do it. But he worked on Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. for 10 years, writing his drafts on airplanes and making sure that he was doing the best work he possibly could. “I applied a lot of the theories in the book to writing the book itself.”

Kirkus writes that Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. earns its hefty page count with “pithy pullout quotes that actually seem helpful,” as well as “attention to detail” that “helps to elevate this business guide above the many competing books in the genre.”

Even so, there are a lot of business books on the market. And like the business owners they speak to, they’re often not very successful. Discerning entrepreneurs know better than most of us that there is no such thing as a quick fix, and a book that promises to solve all their problems is likely just looking to sell itself. But skeptical readers should note that the Kirkus starred review says that Campbell’s “wonderful ability to write for his audience,” is what sets Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. apart:

The book is a breezy read—Campbell can be blunt, but he’s funny and engaging, too. His entertaining guide is filled with all sorts of useful tidbits and insights; unlike some how-to books, filled with ego-driven anecdotes and not much useful information, this is a must-read for those starting their first business as well as more seasoned professionals looking for a quick reminder of some of the keys to business success.

Campbell adds to that glowing description, emphasizing that Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. “breaks new ground and breaks convention. You can create great wealth through the trade of entrepreneurship. And if you think differently about it, you can create meaningful wealth instead of always going for that long-shot ‘unicorn’ company mentality.” Campbell acknowledges that the wild success of famous Silicon Valley companies seems compelling but wants to share with his readers that there’s a more sustainable, repeatable alternative.

When asked if he has plans for future books, Campbell brings up the fact that this one did take an entire decade to finish. And on top of that, he’s still in the midst of his own entrepreneurship journey. “I’m not a consultant; I don’t do master classes. The reality is that I still run a great portfolio of companies, I run a family office with 10 companies, [and] I’m a significant shareholder in 20 investments.…That’s how I spend most of my time! I’m still starting, scaling, and repeating.”

In the book he calls his drive an “addiction,” but he is also grateful for the opportunity to give back by sharing his methods with others. Despite the lengthy track record of his successes, he finds deep meaning in exposing the lessons he learned from failure. “I’ve already had so many people come up to me and tell me how it’s impacted them,” he says. “It’s incredible what it’s doing to wake people up. I’m trying to reset the mentality that everyone needs venture capital, everyone needs to achieve ‘unicorn’ status. Bad things do happen, but this book would never have been written had I never experienced failure, and I want to help people face the mental challenges of entrepreneurship, and to embrace the human side of business.”

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn