Since this book is about starting, it is a perfect book to be the first book I have ever recommended to anyone publicly.
The author of the book, Guy Kawasaki, is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who is a former Apple fellow and has been involved in several software companies. He is a well-known speaker who has written several books.
During the past 10 years I have tried to get all kinds of projects started. Sometimes I have managed (e.g. I did run my own mobile startup for four years), but quite often I have banged my big head on many walls and given up too easily. When I found this book, I hoped to find some good tips to increase my success rate.
I am a fast reader, but it took me over a month to finish this book. Not because it was hard to read, quite the contrary. Its chapters are short, it is structured logically and generally makes perfect sense – but just like good books do – it made me think. I stopped almost after each paragraph or a list of bullets to think my past successes and failures, and what I could have done differently.
In this book Guy Kawasaki tries to provide practical tips for “entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and not-for-profit crusaders” in the areas of positioning, pitching, writing business plans, bootstrapping, recruiting, raising capital, partnering, branding, rainmaking and being a mensch (a person who is ethical, decent and admirable) at the same time. The goal is ambitious but in my opinion well met at least from the perspective of an “entrepreneur-to-be”.
The topics mentioned above include several subtopics which range from schmoozing and giving speeches to designing T-shirts and e-mails. For each topic there is a very useful frequently asked question section and a list of further reading. The exercises I however found dull and meaningless, but luckily easily ignorable.
I found the most of the topics very interesting and I noted a lot of practical tips (some of which I have already applied to my everyday life successfully), but I feel that the book is at its best when it comes to raising capital from the venture capitalists.
The author does great job explaining how the venture capitalists think and how they work. He lists a lot of questions that the venture capitalists will ask from a entrepreneurs-to-be. The best practice is to be honest, he says, because the venture capitalists hear the same lies every single day — after all they do see similar presentations from people who “claim to represent a unique and earth-shattering opportunity with a proven team, proven technologies, and proven market.” Citing estimations found from market research studies will not impress investors.
I recommend that you don’t read this book without a grain of salt as some of the tips are a bit subjective, but expressed often as facts. I would also like to say that you should not give up on this book if you browse it and see some banalities listed here and there because it is just the author’s holistic style to include them — trust me, there is substance among them and now that they are included you can actually use this book as a checklist (before doing presentations, giving speeches, etc).
Other books authored or co-authored by Guy Kawasaki now added to my backlog:
Rules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and Services
Selling the Dream: Sales as Evangelism
How to Drive Your Competition Crazy: Creating Disruption for Fun and Profit
