The Art of the Start : The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (book)

If you are a startup founder (or aspiring to be one) and have time to read just one book this year. Read this book.

If you have time to read two, read this twice.

Yes, its that good.

Dharmesh Shah
http://onstartups.com

Thsi is a great book for getting you back to the basics and anyone who is unsure as to where to start or how to start.
Provides some alternative views, that are simple and implementable.
For a seasoned campaigner it provides a simple easy refresher read, as often we lose sight of how simple it can be.

This is a fun and quick read. Don't be fooled though, Guy answers a lot of questions that don't get covered in any of the other books on entrepreneurship. For example, what is the appropriate percentage of the company to give to those you invite to be on your board of directors? Or how long should my powerpoint pitch be? These are the kinds of no nonsense problems that Guy explains more clearly than anyone else.

This book won't teach you everything you need to know to be successful, but it will teach you things you need to be successful that you won't find anywhere else. For anyone considering starting a business or a non-profit, there will be many books you have to read, and this should be book number one.

"The Art of The Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide For Anyone Starting Anything" by Guy Kawasaki gives new entrepreneurs an overview of topics they might need to understand.

Some of the topics surveyed in "The Art of The Start" include:

The Art of Positioning
The Art of Pitching
Writing A Business Plan
Bootstrapping
Recruiting
Raising Capital
Partnering
Branding

All entrepreneurs will find some of Kawasaki's advice useful. For example, he suggests making a bottom-up forecast, rather than a top-down forecast. Top-down forecasts usually predict a market size and arbitrarily assume the business will be able to capture some percentage of the market. That's not grounded in reality.

Kawasaki writes: "Bootstrappers don't build top-down models. For them, top down = belly up! Instead, they build bottom-up models, starting with real-world variables such as

* Each salesperson can make ten phone calls a day that get through to a prospect
* There are 240 working days per year
* Five percent of the sales calls will convert within six months
* Each successful sale will bring in $240 worth of business
* We can bring on board five salespeople
* Ten calls/day x 240 days/year x 5% success rate x $240/sale x 5 salespeople = $144,000 in sales for the first year."

With positioning, Kawasaki says the entrepreneur should be positive and customer-centric. Kawasaki writes: "Entrepreneurship isn't war, so you don't describe your enterprise in warlike terms... Positioning is about what you do for your customers-not about what you want to become. Announcing that your organization is 'the leading company' is egocentric, not customer-centric. It's also impractical: How can you prove you're the leader? How can you prevent another organization from declaring that it is the leader-just like you have?"

Kawasaki, a renown public speaker, also gives some solid advice about giving presentations and pitching. He suggests you videotape yourself and says, "If you can watch it without being embarrassed, you're ready to go."

Overall, "The Art of The Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide For Anyone Starting Anything" is a good overview of topics you'll find useful in starting your own entrepreneurial venture.

Peter Hupalo,
Author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur"

I particularly liked Guy's casual and sometimes blunt style. His format/content suggestion for your Investor Pitch is worth the price of the book. Make sure you also get Steven Gary Blank's "Four Steps to the Epiphany" as well.