Guy Kawasaki – The Art of the Start

Have you ever read any of Guy Kawasiki’s books? I’ve read and re-read many of them. He’s just amazing and I adore his irreverence (do you see a pattern in the kinds of writers I like?). He’s been quite influential in my attitude towards business.

This is the last one I read: Guy Kawasaki: The Art of the Start.

When you get pregnant, you read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. When you get laid off, you read What Color is Your Parachute?. When you get entrepreneurial, you read The Art of the Start.

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.

Like all his books, The Art of the Start entertained and enlightened me.

I especially laughed at the end when he said he wanted to see the book in folks’ hands, annotated, underlined, and dog eared. His previous books have been mangled by me as I keep going back to them.

It was interesting to see what I dog-eared in this last book (for various reasons, I didn’t scribble stuff in it). Only two of my dog-eared pages are not in the Proliferation section. And most of them are in the branding chapter.

True, at the time (last winter), my venture (Lifeblog) was past many of the stages in the first parts of the book, which I read anyway as a refresher. But, the pattern of dog-earing also showed where my concern was largest – marketing and branding – how to get the product into as many hands as possible.

Indeed, Guy’s slant on marketing and selling have been my biggest draw to his books. The books have inspired me to be a bit bolder than the average Nokia marketing person, and I have benefited from that.

For example, in this last venture, my boss came to me one day and said I needed a little more Wasabi in the marketing. He liked what I was doing, but wanted me to take things up a notch. That was great! For the rest of the time I was in the venture, I had three guiding principles:

– Put more Wasabi into it.
– It is easier to be forgiven than to get permission.
– Push the boundaries of what you do until they fire you.

And here are some notes I made while reading The Art of the Start:
– For partnerships, find an internal champion who can keep the partnership alive, don’t use a committee. <<< Very crucial in any endeavor.
– Learn the art of schmoozing: circulate, ask good questions and listen, follow up, make it easy to get in touch, be passionate, read voraciously, give favours, return favours, ask for favours in return. <<< It’s a give and take.
– Branding: simplify simplify simplify the product. <<< Yes.
– Recruit evangelists:ask, look for believers, let bloom,assign tasks and expect them to get done, nurture and support, give them tools <<< That’s why I had an outreach program.
– Make sure everyone can talk the walk. <<< Every employee represents your company.
– Some fun advice on marketing shirts: Not white, little text, large fonts, make it cool, and consider kids’ sizes. <<< True Kawasaki Wisdom
– Seminars for lead generation. <<< This ties back, somewhat, to the Marketing Sucks recommendations.

Thanks Guy. Keep them coming.