I just finished reading a terrific new book, The Founder’s Manual: A Guidebook for Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur, by Ryan Frederick. I found it to be an excellent resource for startups, entrepreneurs, and anyone who develops or markets new products. Watch Ryan Frederick and I discuss his book in this video interview. And here’s a transcription of our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

The Founder’s Manual: A Guidebook for Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur, by Ryan Frederick, is an excellent resource for entrepreneurs as well as for anyone who works in innovation or marketing new products. And anyone even thinking about starting a company would find the book enormously helpful as well.

A number of the entrepreneurs that I have worked with or written about started their businesses during a crisis, like I did. Their stories below show how a crisis can create clarity about what’s important to focus on as well as how they focused on opportunity while going through difficult times.