Award-winning professor of entrepreneurship Dileep Rao presents readers with a detailed guide to success through his interviews and analysis of billion-dollar entrepreneurs (those who built a venture from startup to more than $1 billion in sales and valuation) and 100 million-dollar entrepreneurs (startup to $100 million). Build your business without venture capital (VC) funding. Rao is here to show entrepreneurs that it is possible to start a business without outside help. He shares how more than 90 percent of America’s billion-dollar entrepreneurs in the VC era (since 1946) avoided or delayed VC, and instead used finance-smart expertise―skills that combine business-smart, capital-smart, and leadership-smart strategies. Armed with 23 years of experience as a financer, Rao shows readers how to optimize internal financing so as to attract external financing. By keeping control of the venture, entrepreneurs keep more of the wealth, as well.