Ever read The E-Myth by Michael Gerber? It was a business book from the late 1980s built around an exceptional and theretofore little-understood premise: that most people who start a business aren't entrepreneurs. Instead, they're technicians, craftsmen or artisans of some sort who've had what Gerber dubbed "an entrepreneurial seizure". For example, an auto mechanic, or chef, or printer, (or anyone of a thousand different job descriptions), becomes fed-up with his dimwitted boss and decides to start his or her own business.
And at that moment, as the entrepreneurial seizure occurs, whether he knows it or not, there are a thousand decisions the budding entrepreneur must now make as he begins to launch and guide his businesses.
Thorough Guide To Starting A Business--Large Or Small
That's where a book like Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start comes into play. Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, author (besides this book, he's written seven others, and his work regularly appears in Forbes), and the chief executive of Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital investment bank for tech firms. Previously he was employed at Apple Computers, perhaps the ultimate Silicon Valley start-up.
He's written a thorough guide to starting a business--whether it's large or small. It won't answer every question of course, but it will point you in the right direction.
Kawasaki's writing style is friendly and conversational. Near the start of the book, he writes, "the truth is, no one really knows if he* is an entrepreneur until he becomes one". The asterisk after he leads to a footnote that reads:
*If only defeating sexism were as simple as throwing in an occasional he/she, she, her, or hers. I use the masculine pronouns merely as a shortcut. Successful entrepreneurship is blind to gender. Don't look for sexism where none exists.That's a exceptionally classy technique that simultaneously makes Kawasaki's job as a writer and the reader's job easier, by avoiding the dreaded singular pronoun/plural adjective error that has become increasingly universal in the last ten or 15 years. Hopefully more will follow his lead.
Article comments
1 - zombyboy
I finished reading it recently and was impressed. It was well worth my time--and I had the same reaction to his gender usage disclaimer.
Excellent book.
2 - Eric Berlin
Selected for Advance.