The Creative Entrepreneur

A Guide to Building a Successful Creative Business From Industry Titans

By: Carolyn Dailey

Narrated by: Carolyn Dailey, Tamsin Kennard, Matthew Biddulph

An essential guide on how to build and run a creative business from ten of the world's most inspiring entrepreneurs, including multi-Grammy winner Nile Rodgers, culinary legend Ruthie Rodgers, and Emmy-winning producer of The Crown, Andy Harries. Their stories, actionable advice, and recommendations will help your business thrive and fuel your life potential.

The Creative Entrepreneur is a call to adventure, inviting you to think from the perspective of a mission-driven creative professional. This thinking can help you form a new business, or transform an existing one, and provide a ready frame for life and your career helping you take your creativity to unprecedented heights. Featuring interviews with ten visionaries from across the fields of fashion, art, film, design, music, gaming, and more, all of whom wed business acumen to a way of seeing the world, and including recommendations to fuel your creativity, support your business vision, and liberate you from old-school thinking.

“This is a handbook of incalculable brilliance. You’ll instinctively know the lessons that resonate with you.”
Nile Rodgers

“I wish I had this book years ago when I started my business.”
Thomas Heatherwick

Carolyn Dailey is the founder of Creative Entrepreneurs, an international community empowering creatives to succeed personally and professionally. She has championed creative lives in the fields of design, music, architecture, film, fashion, publishing, and gaming—and in the heart of government at No. 10 Downing Street. Dailey has been named by Creative Review as one of the Top 50 Creative Leaders, by WIRED magazine as one of the Top 10 Women Digital Powerbrokers and by BIMA as one of the Top 10 Entrepreneurs progressing the creative industries. She spent over 20 years as Time Warner’s top executive in Europe, expanding the reach of HBO, CNN, Warner Bros. and Time Inc. She has given lectures at institutions including Cambridge University and Central St Martins, and regularly appears on Sky News.

©2025 Carolyn Dailey (P)2025 DK Audio

Critic reviews

"This is a handbook of incalculable brilliance. You’ll instinctively know the lessons that resonate with you." —Nile Rodgers

"I wish I had this book years ago when I started my business." —Thomas Heatherwick

"[A] compendium of advice from 10 industry titans whose insights will inform, amuse, and inspire you...The book itself is a design marvel." —Jim Kelly, Air Mail

"Carolyn Dailey teaches readers what it means to turn artistry into enterprise. Long thought of as incompatible forces, creativity and business, she argues, are not just complementary—they're essential to each other’s survival." —Cultured

"Whether they’re artists, designers, filmmakers, or musicians, readers of this book will find practical takeaways that resonate with the challenges and aspirations of the creative path. For anyone who has ever dreamed of building an innovative business or taking their existing one to new heights, this is a timeless resource." —Library Journal