The Art of the Start

The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

By: Guy Kawasaki

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

At Apple, Kawasaki helped turn ordinary customers into fanatics. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, he has tested his iconoclastic ideas on real-world start-ups. And as an irrepressible columnist for Forbes, he has honed his best thinking about The Art of the Start.

©2008 Guy Kawasaki (P)2009 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Kawasaki covers the basics in an effectively casual tone." ( Publishers Weekly)
"His newest work addresses entrepreneurs who want to grow beyond being a company of one as well as innovators who work for large companies." ( Library Journal)

A tremendous inspiration and practical work

What made the experience of listening to The Art of the Start the most enjoyable?

Guy is a very believable fellow. I can relate to him. Common sense is the best business growth tool.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Art of the Start?

Write a business plan for yourself and with your team, not have a consultant write it.

Have you listened to any of Paul Boehmer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This was my first.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No, but I listened to it twice because it was so practical.

great book, robot voice actor

This has some really amazing information in it from someone who apparently knows what he is talking about.

The voice actor/robot almost destroys about 20% of the content by not speaking like a human. There is one chapter that I still don't understand at all. It sounds like a bunch of words being read off a spec sheet as if they were structured in a paragraph. The physical book may be a better bet.

It's a must read!

loved it! It's a must read for entrepreneurs! Guy kawasaki details many important items. Take notes and refer to them through your journey.

Great Read!!

Would you listen to The Art of the Start again? Why?

The re-read value of this book is high. There are lessons and ideas that need to be worked into the scheme and approach of every endeavor, business or otherwise...

Have you listened to any of Paul Boehmer’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but I was please with the narration...

A Guide for Anyone?

Here’s where an entrepreneur, whose dream is not so grandiose, might leave lots of valuable insights on the table. This book is packed full of extremely valuable tips and information but it also gets deep into big money funding, angel investors, and high powered, high flying corporate style boards. Small business dreamers might drop the book not realizing the great value that’s also in it for them.

If you feel like dropping the book because it spends lots of time on topics that fly way over the top of local small business, I’d suggest 2 alternative approaches. 1) Skip the parts that aren’t applicable to you or 2) Do what I like doing. Go through the whole book looking for buried nuggets that do apply to you (there are a wealth of nuggets throughout this book). And in the areas that don’t directly apply, read for the mindset of an entirely different class of entrepreneur and investor. Learning how they think, can give rich insight into how they succeed. That can help recenter our thinking and help us apply tips, tools and mindset to our down to earth business dreams.

For Every Entrepreneurs

A great, quick and easy read for anyone interested in engaging entrepreneurship.

Similar in a way to the process Malcolm Gladwell goes through, this book is a boiling down of a number of academic works on entrepreneurship into bite sized nuggets.

Some of Kawasaki's earlier books were more hype than substance but this one delivers on almost all fronts and I recommend it to entrepreneurs and students every day.

Excellent Advice

I wish this book had been available when I started my company. Kawasaki gives sound advice. Many points of advice he gives I had to learn the hard way, by doing them wrong at first. Anyone who is thinking of starting a company should read this book.

Great introduction to being an entrepreneur

If you have been jn the game for a while, you may find this book redundant. If you are interested in entering the game and want to be entrepreneur, raise money, particularly the Silicon Valley way, this is an excellent guide.

Great Start!

What made the experience of listening to The Art of the Start the most enjoyable?

This was a great audio book. The narrator was very good and Mr. Kawasaki's writing was informative and at times, humorous. The chapter on creating a PowerPoint was awesome!

Good, but still a guy's opinion.

The ideal reader of this book would be someone thinking of beginning a startup. It's not just for anyone, and it's not about "starting anything" like the tagline says. The book is full of nuggets of advice, with a no-nonsense, confident delivery, and a touch of sense of humor. I think Guy Kawasaki is legit, and you get a sense that he really has "been there" and is just giving you all the advice he can give. Audio format is probably not the best for this book, since there is a lot of tabulated content that starts sounding very tedious after a while. I did enjoy the part on "how to hire someone" and the concept of bootstrapping a company. A lot of misconceptions get clarified, and it gives a good idea of the attitude and expectations one should have when starting a business venture.