The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
31st January 2006 by Sean
| Author: Guy Kawasaki |  |
What Guy Kawasaki says:
This book is a weapon of mass construction. My goal was to provide the definitive guide for anyone starting anything. It builds upon my experience as an evangelist, entrepreneur, and most recently, as a venture capitalist who found, fixed, and funded startups.
The book is as relevant for two guys in a garage starting the next Google as social activists trying to save the world. GIST: cuts through the theoretical crap, theories and gets down to the real-world tactics of pitching, positioning, branding, recruiting, bootstrapping, and rainmaking.
What Amazon says.
What does it take to turn ideas into action? What are the elements of a perfect pitch? How do you win the war for talent? How do you establish a brand without bucks? These are some of the issues everyone faces when starting or revitalizing any undertaking, and Guy Kawasaki, former marketing maven of Apple Computer, provides the answers.The Art of the Start will give you the essential steps to launch great products, services, and companies—whether you are dreaming of starting the next Microsoft or a not-for-profit that’s going to change the world. It also shows managers how to unleash entrepreneurial thinking at established companies, helping them foster the pluck and creativity that their businesses need to stay ahead of the pack. Kawasaki provides readers with GIST—Great Ideas for Starting Things—including his field-tested insider’s techniques for bootstrapping, branding, networking, recruiting, pitching, rainmaking, and, most important in this fickle consumer climate, building buzz.
What a reader says.
This book is particularly helpful to entrepreneurs/marketers in two areas: pursuing financing for start-ups and developing the core strategy. Kawasaki dedicates a lot of time to assessing financing strategies. His principal advice is to eschew the pursuit of venture capital, and instead to pursue “bootstrapping” methods. To his credit, he discusses in great detail every method of pursuing financing that he knows of, offering plenty of advice along the way.