The Art of the Start

Last weekend I completed reading Guy Kawasaki's book The Art of the Start: The time-tested, battle-hardened guide for anyone starting anything. What an amazing experience. Guy's witty way of presentation makes it difficult drop the book for anything else. Infact I completed the book in just two days. Be sure to watch the exceptionally brilliant Art of the Start video.

The book is divided into 11 chapters, each dealing with a specific phase of the entrepreneur's journey. Throughout the book Guy stresses that one would succeed if you start out on the premise of "making the word a better place" as against starting out an enterprise with the sole goal of making money. He also encourages starting out as a "services" organization and then moving into a "products" organization and not the other way round - which is the biggest takeaway for me.

What impressed me most about the book is its straight forwardness, principles behind each of the advice/tip and metrics to measure against. Each chapter (the 11 chapters are on Art of Starting, Positioning, Pitching, Writing a business plan, Bootstrapping, Recruiting, Raising capital, Partnering, Branding, Rainmaking and on the Art of Being a Mensch), begins with a GIST (Great Ideas for Starting Things) and an explanation of key points of the chapter. The MiniChapter is a todo list and FAQ answers several questions you might still have at the end of the chapter. The book is littered with great quotes and each chapter has recommended list of books to further enhance your understanding. To test your understanding of the subject "exercises" pops-up at regular intervals.

This book is a must read not only for budding entrepreneurs but also for execs in the bigger companies that are trying to get funded for an interesting project.