Name: The Art of the Start
ISBN: 9781591840565

The Art of the Start

A new product, a new service, a new company, a new division, a new organization, a new anything--where there's a will, here's the way.It begins with a dream that just won't quit, the once-in-a-lifetime thunderbolt of pure inspiration, the obsession, the world-beater, the killer app, the next big thing. Everyone who wants to make the world a better place becomes possessed by a grand idea. But what does it take to turn your idea into action? Whether you are an entrepreneur, intrapreneur, or not-for-profit crusader, there's no shortage of advice available on issues such as writing a business plan, recruiting, raising capital, and branding. In fact, there are so many books, articles, and Web sites that many startups get bogged down to the point of paralysis. Or else they focus on the wrong priorities and go broke before they discover their mistakes. In The Art of the Start,Guy Kawasaki brings two decades of experience as one of business's most original and irreverent strategists to offer the essential guide for anyone starting anything, from a multinational corporation to a church group. At Apple in the 1980s, he helped lead one of the great companies of the century, turning ordinary consumers into evangelists. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm, he has field-tested his ideas with dozens of newly hatched companies.

What Hacker News says

vivegiAug 2022

Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything https://www.amazon.com/Art-Start-2-0-Time-Tested-Battle-Hard...

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mindcrimeMay 2021

Are there any other books or resources Hacker News recommends? I’m probably wrong on a lot of what I think I know.

Reading / studying The Lean Startup is good, but I recommend going back to the origin of the whole movement, and read The Four Steps to the Epiphany by @sgblank. It really is an amazing book that walks through the process of starting a business, and explains the "Customer Development" process in excruciating detail. If you take nothing away from it, it will (hopefully) be the idea that a startup is all about search. Not "search" as in "web search" but "search" as in searching for a business model, market, distribution channels, promotional activities, etc. that work. Especially note the iterative aspect, and how the choice to "pivot" should occur in response to specific indicators, and isn't just some random whim that prompts a change of focus.

Another book I like is The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. You might find it worth a read.

I also recommend Alan Kay's video series on "How to Invent the Future" which can be found on Youtube.

1.Think of an idea/ find co-founders (starting a company with friends has risks) <snip> 7. Secure funding or be self sufficient cash business? Pitch to VC/investor??? No idea about this

That's a reasonable approximation of the idea, but again, note that iterations are part of the process. And it's a little bit more structured than that. Here's an example of what I mean:

Where you say "See if enough people have this “pain” to even pursue the startup." I would argue that that's incomplete. The question isn't only "do enough people have this pain" but also

1. Does the "thing" I'm proposing to build solve the pain?

2. If it does, does the customer value solving that pain enough to pay money for the solution?

3. How much will they pay?

4. Given the answer to (3) above, and my cost of developing and distributing the solution, can this be done profitably?

And that's before you get into the other questions you're trying to answer during the CD process like:

What channels do my customers learn about solutions like this from?

Should this be a purely self-serve / transactional sales model on a SaaS model with credit card payments, or is this a high-touch, direct-sales kind of thing?

What's the distribution channel that works for this "thing" and these customers? Maybe I need to sell through a VAR or System Integrator instead of direct.

Blah, etc. etc...

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mindcrimeApr 2021

"Business" is a broad topic, and trying to understand all of the different facets of it, in depth, in a short order of time, is probably not possible. But you can certainly get an overview of the different aspects and start getting a feel for what areas appeal to you, and get the foundation you need to grow from.

There are a lot of different ways you can accomplish this, ranging from reading books, taking classes, watching videos, talking to people in person, attending meetings, listening to podcasts... even watching television programs.

I'm in a meeting right now so can't focus a lot of attention on this right this second, but I'll drop a couple of thoughts based on my own experience. Later I'll try to come back and edit this, or reply to it, with some more thoughts.

Books:

1. The Art of the Start by Guy Kawaski

2. The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

3. Crossing The Chasm - Geoffrey Moore

4. Purple Cow - Seth Godin

Consider also biographies of business figures you may be familiar with, and historical accounts of important events in the business world.

Podcasts:

1. The Stanford "ecorner" Podcast series. https://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts/

Classes:

1. You might consider something like BUS-101 "Introduction to Business" or whatever at a local community college if that's an option. If you were to go that route, I'd also recommend taking a "Intro to Marketing" and "Intro to Business Law" courses as well. Those three topics give you a lot of foundational knowledge.

2. I have not done this yet myself, but taking an Accounting class (or two) has often been recommended to me, and I do believe it's a good idea. Accounting is the "language of business" in many ways, and understanding cash flow, profit and loss, etc., are pretty important concepts for any business-person.

TV shows:

1. There are a lot of TV shows that are both entertaining and also contain useful exposure to various aspects of business and can be somewhat didactic. Of course the challenge may be picking out the real parts from the bits that are dramatized / fictionalized to an excessive degree. That said, consider some shows like Halt and Catch Fire, Billions, Power, Dallas, etc.

Events:

1. (Once they start occurring again) Consider attending networking events that may occur near you, that are "business oriented". That can cover a lot of ground, but you can meet a lot of people, start building a network of connections, possibly find mentor(s), etc. I'd mostly avoid sales / lead swap specific groups for now, as well as most "startup oriented" events, and look for something more general. Events put on by groups like the local "Chamber of Commerce" etc. are usually good.

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proxJan 2021

Look up some talks from Guy Kawasaki, art of the start for example, it’s quite good and harmless humor.

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mindcrimeJul 2020

The Four Steps to the Epiphany

The Startup Owner's Manual (note: this and the entry above are sorta/kinda the same book, just different editions. But there's enough difference between the two that I recommend both)

The Art of the Start

The Lean Startup

The Mom Test

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mindcrimeJan 2020

The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank.

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

Zero to One by Peter Thiel

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