© B Y ..S T E V E ..W E L S H
Oregon MacPioneers User Group (Omug)
Once again, Guy Kawasaki has crafted a book rich in purpose, wisdom, elegance, usefulness and heart. Add worthiness.
But the key word here is usefulness.
The Art Of The Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything is Kawasaki’s latest book since his highly successful “Rules for Revolutionaries” in 2000, and this new 226-page creation is a must-read, perhaps even a manual, for entrepreneurs. And yes, for starting just about any venture.
For those that do not know Guy, a very brief, and certainly not inclusive, biography:
Raised in Hawaii and later moving to California, Guy went from jewelry to a diamond in the rough company called Apple Computer in the early 1980s, and helped evangelize the Macintosh, which changed the computer world. He later started a Mac software company, became an industry columnist, wrote books, was a highly-sought speaker/consultant and now runs the company he founded, Garage Technology Ventures, for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. And for those who count calories in education, he has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from the UCLA. He is married, has 3 young boys, and counts his blessings often.
For those who know Kawasaki, you know all you need to know. He is a legend in evangelism*, especially to Apple fans. His new book is a dish — no, a banquet, a feast — of wisdom (more important, usefulness) for starters to be devoured and savored, over and over. Readers of any of his previous books, such as “Selling The Dream” or “Hindsights” or “Rules For Revolutionaries” have already sampled his low-carb (fluff) and high-protein (time-tested, battle-hardened experience) offerings and hunger for more high-nuitrition tidbits.
Sounds healthy? It should. Kawasaki created this book to “help get entrepreneurs get off to a fast start, and provide a definitive guide for anyone starting anything.” And, it goes without saying, succeed and survive after you start.
Thankfully, Kawasaki cannot produce a book — actually, or anything else he sets out to do — without passion, wit, humor and common sense. (well, maybe he could, but he won’t).
The Art Of The Start will most likely be considered Kawasaki’s most polished, wisdom-packed literary effort by those who have followed his writings. He would probably say that it should be, considering that life provides more wisdom as we age. But a solid testimony for this new book comes from the author himself in that Guy practices what he preaches.
Example: From page 171 in chapter 9, “The Art of Branding”, he puts this in a “now it’s your turn, you do this” Exercise box:
“Run a contest asking your customers to write the best manual for your product or service. You’ll have a handful of good manuals, and you’ll uncover some evangelists.”
How did he walk the talk? Guy teamed up with iStockPhoto.com members and put on a contest/call for jacket cover designs for his new book. Boom! A flood of designs and visual angles poured in based not only on the title of the book but also on the author. So impressive some where, that Guy decided to share such design evangelism with the rest of us by featuring 70 of those submitted on the INSIDE of the book’s jacket cover. That might be a book industry first.
Kawasaki divides his startup guide into a 5-course meal: Causation, Articulation, Activation, Proliferation and Obligation. Each course offers a variety of dishes (chapters), such as The Art of Pitching, The Art of Writing a Business Plan, The Art of Bootstrapping, The Art of Partnering, even (under Obligation) The Art of Being a Mensch. Oy!
Guy continues a style in this book that he has used before, and that is beginning each chapter with a quote, words of wisdom, from other wise people. I like to call it “cleansing the mental palate before devouring and savoring the next nugget of wisdom.” As he told me recently (see accompanying 20-question interview on this Omug site), “I happen to love epigrams. I spend hours selecting them. Why invent wisdom when you can grab what others have done before?”
Indeed. Interestingly, even the Table of Contents is prefaced by a quote, attributed to “anonymous”:
“A friend is one to whom you can pour out the contents of your heart, chaff and grain alike. Knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.”
Perhaps that might seem an odd, even out of place, offering to prime you for a book that deals with, in most societary regards, the cold hard world of business. But I think this is just what sets Guy’s books and sharings apart from other wisdom tools of the trade — he knows full well the humanity that is part of business DNA or ventures that are worth a damn, ones that actually nurture and contribute to the world (no matter how small that world is). Yes, even dare to change the world. “You can never have enough friends,” Guy reaffirms.
The variety of quotes Kawasaki selected for Art Of The Start are as tasteful, and sometimes surprising (would you believe sources such as Wile E. Coyote of Bugs Bunny fame or even Los Angeles graffiti?), as they are thought-provoking. Look, too, for tidbits from Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ralph Nadar, Jonathan Swift, to Shakespeare himself.
And yet, to character, Guy puts wisdom into his own words, too. “Some of Kawasaki's ideas (‘churn, baby, churn’; ‘think digital, act analog’; ‘eat like a bird, poop like an elephant’) may seem off-the-cuff, but they are heavily referenced, gleaned from keen observation and illustrated with examples that range from the Wright brothers to the Grateful Dead,” wrote The Industry Standard about Guy’s Rules For Revolutionaries. Gratefully — and I mean this in the most sincere way — Guy continues to poop with the best of them in his new book.
(Now, please help me while I try to transition from manure to more wisdom.)
Along with several well-placed exercises for readers to actually try during their startup, any intelligent, well-serving guide will point you to other reading references as well, which Guy does. Of course, what puts Guy’s fingerprints all over this book are the slices of his experiences served as examples (others might call that “proof”).
By the way, there is a quote from eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar on the cover, and he suggests to “read the last chapter first.” So I did, but I won’t spoil the purpose of that for you (sometimes it’s okay to do what you are told).
What I enjoyed equally as much as Kawasaki’s startup advice in this book was his appreciation and depreciation of his growth as a writer, after 8 books. This from his website:
“The biggest influence on my writing was my high school English teacher, Harold Keables. A few years ago, unfortunately, he passed away. I hope he’s in a place where no one uses the passive voice nor splits infinitives. Based on my performance in his classes, he would be astounded (there’s that passive voice again) to learn that I have written eight books. Frankly, so am I.”
Guy serves dessert with his 5-course meal. He gives you a FAQ section on the last few pages. The final Q&A from the list:
Q: People are always asking me for my expert advice, but it’s interfering with my ability to get my current job done. What should I do?
A: Write a book and tell everyone to buy it.
Well, well, again with the practicing of the preaching! Oy!
My advice is be sure to read who Guy dedicated this book to, and what he wrote underneath that dedication.
Finally, you can understand why for Guy, or anyone else who cares about sharing to benefit others, it is the usefulness of his book that is the best compliment. After all, what is advice without application?
From his Afterword: “I also hope to meet you someday. If you have the book with you, you can show me how you took notes, dog-eared the pages, and underlined text. Nothing is more flattering to an author than to see that his book is severely ‘used.’”
And like any good guide, it goes along on the journey. Specifically, and in this case especially, from the start.
END
Art Of The Start hardcover book, 226 pages, published by Portfolio (Penguin Books).
More Guy, and links to buy his books, online at:
