Author’s Note: This article was originally posted on my personal blog. It has been tweeked some.
A while back I was made aware of a great opportunity by my friend and associate (and reader of this blog) Ron Johnson. He dropped me an email about a Guy Kawasaki contest on his blog. After participating by adding the Truemors Application to my Facebook I sent an email to Guy and I was one of the lucky first 200 to receive a free autographed copy of The Art of the Start - The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything.
Here is my overall opinion of The Art of the Start—It is a book written with true personal experience from a business veteran. In reading the pages I really felt like the thorough advice I was receiving was from a man who knew what the hell he was talking about. This is a growingly uncommon feeling in reading Business books now a days.
Briefly, here is a history of Guy Kawasaki’s career. He started out working as a Mac Evangelist for Apple Computers, Inc. in the 80’s and grew a reputation as the key Apple Fellow in spreading the word about this great machine to programmers and engineers in the infant stage of the Personal Computer.
He eventually left Apple, started a couple other ventures, came back to Apple to clean up the mess it was in the 90’s, and then he co-founded his current company called Garage Technology Ventures, a Startup Capital firm.
In his latest book (of 8 written) he addresses exactly what the title implies, the excitement and pure chaos of starting a new venture from scratch. He runs through all the types of practice a person will need in starting their venture and gives a lot of great insight into the world of starting something new in pursuit of Changing the World.
The fundamental aspect I took away from this book over everything else is that you should not go into business to make money but instead do so to make Meaning or in other words make the world a better place. If a person can accomplish this, money will most likely come.
I have talked about this concept a lot on this blog. Through reading this book you can hear it from a seasoned pro. Business, fundamentally, is not an entity with purpose to make money, but instead is a means to better the world.
Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start is an excellent read for people starting a new business venture because it provides reader the fundamentals but leave room open for them to make personal meaning in their new Startup, whatever it may be.
To check out more about Guy and his new book go to…
The start is always the hardest part - thanks for the recommendation (I’m starting a project up right now it’ll help to read this book)
Great review Warren. I loved the first few chapters of this book. But later on, he seemed to go on far too much about pitching to venture capitalists - which is all very well if you want to do that. But, not very stimulating if you don’t.