The Art of the Start
I hammered through a shedload of books on holiday, but one that I feel deserves a shout out is The Art Of The Start by Guy Kawasaki.
It’s a deceptively slim tome (I managed to read it in its entirity on the 8 hour flight home), but absolutely brimming with common sense on how to get a small business started—How to make sure that everyone shares your vision, how to pitch to potential investors/customers (Clue: A Powerpoint pres with 60 slides of 14 point text that you just read off the screen ain’t gonna do it), how to brand yourself, how to schmooze, how to translate what VCs are telling you, and, oh, so much more.
It’s one of my goals in life that I’m going to start my own company some day. I’m sure that some day, I’m gonna meet someone with a good business brain that I click with, and we’re gonna take a big gamble. The book doesn’t go into huge amounts of depth on any given topic, but it’s given me enough of a roadmap that I’m at least facing in the right direction.
My previous and current jobs have been at small start-upy ventures, and I’m going to be going in on Tuesday with my dog-eared, asterisked copy of the book and trying to see if I can’t get a bit of Guy Kawasaki’s smarts bouncing around internally.
If you’re interested, you can download a PDF of the first chapter at artofthestart.com
I'm