Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World

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Those who can't compete without a broad product line will disagree, however he makes his case for his business story well. Some flywheel-unsticking examples, Yelp paying for references, Yelp giving badges out with links back to Yelp, etc.

Written by the founder of a company that’s already made it and packed with cheat codes and hacks, this is the ultimate insider’s playbook of strategies and tactics for struggling founders and would-be innovators. The purpose of Lost and Founder is similar to what a number of other entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley success stories (like DHH) are trying to push, which is that startups don't have to be crazy, massively funded, chaotic and run by tyrants. The most successful businesses have gone from being headed by a university graduate who’s slogged her way up the corporate ladder for a decade or two, to being the brainchild of a Harvard dropout working out of a garage.The bad: Although fair and raw and truthful, Fishkin’s book is at points riddled with hate and distrust of certain figures in the startup scene “just because”. Fishkin's hard-won lessons are applicable to any kind of business environment and this book can help solve your problems, and make you feel less alone for having them. Came at an opportune time for me while I was navigating and making important choices from my own startup. The book is an easy read, with occasional humor ranging from cheesy to funny, it is well-written and well laid-out, something I particularly appreciate having just previously read a fairly dry thesis published in a subatomic font size with barely 2-3 paragraphs per page. But his business and reputation took fifteen years to grow, and his startup began not in a Harvard dorm room but as a mother-and-son family business that fell deeply into debt.

Welcome to the startup world, where a good idea and a convincing pitch can kickstart the path to global dominance. One example of this is how one of his values he mentions a lot in the book, is being empathetic and looking at things from someone else's point of view. Lost and Founder isn't as much a "warning" story about the state of the startup industry, but is more of an honest look from a founder who was part of that industry, saw what was happening, made some mistakes, and is happy to own up to them and provide simple advice to people looking to run their own companies.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Most people don't want to talk about those startup stories, but the truth is, they're a lot more common than the Zuckerberg-esque tales of success we so often hear about. partly because the book confirms many of my doubts about popular startup quotes about the fake it until you make it mentality, and about the go big or go home mentality, by giving examples based on the author's startup experience as an ex-CEO, partly because the book is written in a very light and personal tone, so it's very easy and fun to read for me. To me these biases are part of the appeal of the book, because you get to see his world view rather than an attempt at an objective reality. He delivers a refreshing open and honest account of his start up journey and how he dealt with the pitfalls, pressures and perversities of his own start up. Even if you disagree with some of his take-aways he does a great job of intelligently making each case.From a marketing point-of-view he also says it gets MUCH more difficult to SELL a larger number of products (and why). They then became the first to develop a tool to show who linked to whom on the internet by building a web index 'to rival Google', despite experts telling them this couldn't be done with their resources. Covering everything from his unhealthy decisions, his own unstable self and the mistakes he committed while building. He talks about borrowing money from venture capital, growth hacking, MVP (Minimum Viable Product), company culture and company code and talks about when you should sell. Selling more now, however, can get in the way of sustainably improving your products to leave you well positioned to meet future challenges.

Everyone knows how a startup story is supposed to go: A young, brilliant entrepreneur has a cool idea, drops out of college, defies the doubters, overcomes all odds, makes billions, and becomes the envy of the technology world. This is a somewhat unique business book primarily for its exceptionally transparent view of the life and history of a small-to-mid-sized software startup company, as well as noting some nuggets of wisdom along the way. May have been helpful for author to put lessons he's taking into his next start up in beginning as well, so we could look out for red flags with traditional VC backed approaches from start. Where else have you found anyone sharing eye-opening financial details, battles with depression and self-doubt, managerial insights in ONE book?He gives a specific example of a time the risk of doing so was perceived to be just too great, so it is a balanced commentary.