The time-tested, battle-hardened guide for anyone starting anything – written by Guy Kawasaki Starting a business that scales is no easy feat. In this book, Guy gives us a very useful guideline to follow. I have not offered investors in our software company because we have been financing our R&D through earnings and cash flow. Regardless, we have two other ideas that may require funding, I was intrigued by reading this book. It is much more than jumping for money. This guide will help you keep your eye on the ball and make sure it doesn’t end up as part of the 50% statistic. The 50% statistic says that all startups fail in the first 5 years. I’m sure no one knows this better than Guy Kawasaki as he invests in startups.
Why is this important to me? I always want to ask you this question as if I was sitting in your shoes. I don’t want to waste your time. One thing is for sure. Most of today’s Americans need to earn more money. So this book is a must read for you if you are creating the next Facebook or just starting a part-time business. If you look back in history, families could survive on just one income. So both parents started working and it really went well for them. As usual, expenses always increase to cover income, so both parents had to work. Today, 44 million Americans receive food stamps. This is almost 15% of the population. A guide like Art of the Start will help you create your own wealth and not become a victim of war. We live in the greatest transfer of wealth in history. The dollar has lost value since President Nixon took us off the gold standard, and people who thought they could retire have been taken to the dry cleaners by Wall Street bankers betting on derivatives. It is up to us to dictate our own destiny and Guy’s book will assist in that quest.
The art of the beginning consists of 5 sections. For the sake of time, I will touch on one area in each section.
1. Causality: Guy has coined the term GIST to mean big ideas to start with. In essence, this is the compelling WHY of what it does. The Three Stooges did their last television series with Curly in 1945. This was over 66 years ago. That’s longevity when you do something you love. In our business we sell to public safety organizations. Our compelling vision is “Seconds save lives.” We create great software to help dispatch centers save lives. Sure we make money doing it, but that’s secondary to “Cause.” Doing something that you love and that has meaning is the essence of GIST.
2. Articulation: the art of throwing is essential for the survival of any organization. Show and tell doesn’t work. Business owners have to jump in at all levels. They need to sell their ideas internally, they need to introduce new clients, and they need to present the best talent. I must confess that I always thought I was a pretty good salesperson because my mission was to ask questions of potential customers and have a 70/30 relationship with them. This means that they speak 70% of the time and I speak 30%. This allowed me to understand their needs. One thing I needed to work on was the Pitching part. Guy touches on this in detail in the book and Carmine Gallo wrote a book that really solidifies the method. It’s called Steve Jobs Filing Secrets. Following this new method has allowed my team to increase their sales by 100%. Some of the techniques include the 10/20/30 rule. Basically this means 10 PowerPoint slides, 20 minutes, and 30 point font. The KISS principle is fundamental (keep it simple and stupid). Have you ever sat in PowerPoint hell? Think about it for a moment – you have slides with fine print and big buzzwords that only make the presenter feel smart while the audience feel stupid. That is not the way to go.
3. Activation: this is the “Do” section. There will be times when you will have to keep an eye on the money and count the pencils and there will be other times when you will have to pay to recruit the best talent. This can be a paradox, but depending on where your business is located, it will determine what you do and how you invest your capital. Capital raising is an art form that I personally need to work on. Guy describes what to do and it’s so logical that I’m surprised people miss it. One thing that stands out here is being realistic in your numbers. Don’t say there are three billion people in China and if we get 1% of them to spend $ 50, we will be a $ 1.5 billion company. This is not realistic because getting 1% is really difficult. The best way to do this is by allocating the capital you are requesting in terms of sales and marketing. Are you going to sell directly or indirectly? How many sales calls can each salesperson make? What is the closing relationship? What is the average size of the transactions? What is the expected lifetime value of each new customer? Understanding these questions will allow you to scale effectively, and more importantly, your investors will believe you. Giving short, realistic presentations will put you ahead of 80% of the offers the VC sees.
4. Proliferation – In this section, Guy talks about Branding, Partnering and Rainmaking. If you are selling in the B2B (Business to Business) market, then you only buy for three reasons and they are to increase revenue, reduce costs, and mitigate risk. That’s. So if you partner with other organizations, those partnerships must amount to doing one of three things. If that is not the case
then it’s the marketers who waste their time creating useless press releases that talk about partnerships. In reality, most of the partnerships during the dot-com craze were simple public relations tactics that never made any money.
5. Obligation – Emerson summed up that if you want more, give more. Giving back to society pays dividends. A great quote in Samuel Johnson’s book sums this up: “The measure of a man is how he treats someone who cannot do him any good.”
The Art of the Start is an excellent business book. If you are interested in building a full or part time business, I suggest you read it. I can tell you that the presentation scheme discussed in this book works and has significantly increased our business.
I hope this short video summary has been helpful to you. The key to any new idea is to incorporate it into your daily routine until it becomes a habit. Habits are formed in just 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is “Say no to PowerPoint hell.” Evaluate your presentations and if you are reading the slides as you present, you are doing it wrong. Also evaluate your sales team. Good trial attorneys don’t read your closing statements. In order for them to win, they have to help the jury find out that they are right. It’s more about being prepared than improvising and just reading slides.