The Art of the Start

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)

Great Content - Punishing Narration

Kawasaki's principles are fantastic. I went out and bought the book, perhaps a better format with all the lists and references. But, was the narrator a real person or was it text-to-speech software? That perfectly dispassionate monotone actually sounded computer-generated. Impossible to enjoy.

24 of 25 people found this review helpful

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.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

I wish Guy Kawasaki narrated this book

The book is full of good startup/entrepreneurial advice, but it loses some of its impact without Kawasaki's presentation style. The narrator is OK, but not nearly dynamic enough for the topic. There are several of Kawasaki's presentations on YouTube so if you haven't heard him talk, check out the videos before you buy this book. If you like the videos, the book is just more of that. If you don't like the videos, you won't like the book.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

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.

13 of 15 people found this review helpful

I love Guy, I wish he would narrate

Any additional comments?

I can't get through this because of the narrator. The content is great, I am going to buy the book and read it.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Excellent start-up business advice - bad narration

Excellent start-up advice. Applicable and relevant in 2016.

Poor narration. Too much attitude in the tone of the narrator. May have been going for humor in the delivery but interfered with the information delivered.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

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.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Good book but I didn't like the narrator.

Narrator felt like a robot. Overall the book was good but maybe a little bit too long.

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.