How to Spot the Next Starbucks, Whole Foods, Walmart, or McDonald's BEFORE Its Shares Explode: A Low-Risk Investment You Can Pretty Much ... to Retire to Florida or the South of France Hardcover – August 8, 2017 by Mark Tier (St Martin's Press)

Mark's books are always worth reading for any investors. As a veteran value minded investor, Mark is not a typical value trap investor. He sees value from growth entities. His writing is not a textbook boring thing. He walks you through the fabrics of investment background and related company stories that are eye openers for readers..This book is a fascinating journey into how great businesses begin, what sets them apart from competitors that lag behind—and what to look for to get in on the ground floor of what could be the “Next Big Thing.”

With one engaging story after another, the author weaves the essentials of evaluating management, products, service, the essential behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts, and the other “key ingredients” (as he calls them) of a great business into an easily understandable mosaic.

One easily-understandable metric he strongly recommends you evaluate is what he calls the customer experience. Part of “finding the next Starbucks by walking around.”

While my preferred investment strategy is quite different from looking for the next Starbucks or the next Google, since reading Tier’s book I notice I’ve started evaluating my customer experience at the many different businesses—both online and off—I frequent every week. And found a couple that warrant further investigation!

Finally, although the focus of the book is on finding the “Next Big Thing,” the reality is you can apply his investigative tools to any business at any stage of development. As a template, he even gives three examples of possible investment opportunities he came across without leaving home. Literally (thanks to Google, of course).