The Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf: “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

I have been recommending this book to my student team in NUS Entrepreneurship Society and I believe that it is a must read for people who want to become entrepreneurs. I have two copies of the book, one which I have kindly donated one of them to my former organization, Cambridge University Entrepreneurs to inspire the future teams and another that is a signed copy from Guy passed to me through one of his colleagues who I knew personally when I was organizing the Global Startup Workshop 2004. Though I have never met Guy Kawasaki in my life, I believe that he must have extraordinary charisma as I have heard of his stories through those who met him and those who worked with him.

In this book, Guy has set up a step by step guide in helping young entrepreneurs to get started with their dreams. On some level, from reading the way he presented the book, I think that he is gearing the book not only just for business entrepreneurs, but for people who believes that they can make a difference and change the world. There is one innovative thing which he has done in this book, is to have a competition to decide which book cover he would like to have for a book. If you turn the book cover around, you will find designs of other covers which can be used for this book.

For those who don’t like to read a lot, this is the ideal book for you. Basically, he broke down the entire process into five stages: Casuation, Articulation, Activation, Proliferation and Obligation. In each of these stages, he introduced different arts to complement that process. For example, in articulation, he discussed the art of positioning, the art of pitching and the art of writing a business plan. Of all parts of the book, I particularly like the chapter on “The Art of Bootstrapping”. To me, it is one of the few books who brought out the bootstrapping model for entrepreneurs earlier than fundraising. I suppose that he understood that most entrepreneurs are living on a shoe string budget and needs to find a way to survive before it is very difficult to raise money in some places for a startup.

Generally, I believe that the last chapter of this book is important. It talks about the mensch, which is the Yiddish term for a person who is ethical, decent and admirable and how your organization and achievements will outlast you. The important things he preached at the end which I believe are the words of wisdom for entrepreneurs and how they can contribute to helping people, paying back to society and doing what’s right. A lot of people think that entrepreneurship is just about money, but I don’t think so. I believe that it is about making a difference not only in your own life, but others as well.

Well, even if you have finished the book, you can still read advanced material from his blog where he discuss a lot more about other aspects involved in starting a business. For example, I liked the articles on the art of customer service, the art of board meetings and many others.

Technorati Tags: Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start, Entrepreneurship Education

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