The Art of the Start
September 29, 2009
If think you want to get into the business of entrepreneurship or are already cranking away at the next big thing, I highly recommend that you take the time to read “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki. I have a copy of the book. Hit me up on Facebook or Twitter if you want to borrow it. If you don’t want to take the time to read the book, at least make the time to watch Guy’s video presentation covering the concepts of the book in the embedded video below. I’ve summarized the slides below.
10 Key Concepts from “The Art of the Start”
- Make Meaning - If you want to start a company, it should be to make meaning. Not to make money.
- Increase the quality of life
- Right a wrong
- Prevent the end of something good
- Make a Mantra - You don’t need a long and confusing mission statement; only a simple 3-4 word mantra
- Get Going - What are you waiting for?! Get after it!!
- Think different
- Polarize people
- Define a Business Model
- Be specific
- Keep it simple
- Weave a MAT - Map out your game plan, and prioritize accordingly
- Milestones
- Assumptions
- Tasks
- Niche Thyself - All you need to know about marketing is on this single slide
- Follow the 10/20/30 Rule
- 10 slides
- 20 minutes
- 30 is the smallest font size
- Font size algorithm - Take the oldest person in the crowd and divide by 2.
- Hire Infected People
- Ignore the irrelevant
- Hire people better than yourself
- Apply shopping center test
- Lower Barriers to Adoption
- Flatten the learning curve
- Don’t ask people to do something you wouldn’t do yourself
- Embrace your evangelists
- Seed the Clouds
- Let 100 flowers blossom
- Enable test drives
- Find the influencers
- Don’t let the Bozos grind you down
