stevewa

sorry too brain dead to read anymore tonight.

please read my comments while wearing a teflon jacket. these are not personal attacks, just my personal thoughts about a book about how to make a web startup. i'm trying to build a new startup and reading all these blogs, and at times it seems like the authors of these blogs are pontificating their thoughts and trying to sell their own book, or speaking engagements, or whatever. So I start the discussion as a jaded a-hole. It's just where I am at right now. sorry.

I don't like the title. sounds like a book about running to lose weight. maybe it'll change by the time the final comes out. i quickly paged-down through 39 pages of the pdf, and most everything seems to be a rehash of stuff I've read on blogs. is the value of the book come from having all these concepts in one place? can a book have value anymore because once it is written it is basically obsolete? and do entreprenuers have time to read a book, especially a 141 page book? in your about the author section you say you've been doing start-ups for 7 years, but you don't explain if the startups became successful, so can we trust what you wrote as a valid recipe for success, or is it just adnecdotal musings of personal ideas, etc. the book is written in the tone of preaching, i.e. this is how to do it, but so far it lacks the exact how to do it steps. I think that is what programmers are most fond of, a book of recipes that show you how to make something work, and they can do it and it works. yes I know, this is a lot trickier. there is no right or wrong, no compiler to validate that you're doing it the right way. maybe this book is more for a business person who will just hire or subcontract a programmer and drive them crazy with pivots every hour :)

that's all the time i have for right now, i'll try to stay up even later tonight (after my coding work has burned out my brain) to read some more and make more comments. thanks for sharing it.

My opinion is that is entertainment. I don't think it is turning the knobs, instead it is manipulating the video tape to show you what they want you to see. And he is an outsider making the changes, the original person is not doing it themselves. In a startup, the original person needs to be coming up with ways to turn the knobs and try different things to see what will work. It seems they choose people for the entertainment and shock value. Same thing with the "We mean business" show on AETV. I recommend a different source of inspiration...

You don't have to move on to something else, you just need to get money to pay your rent, then keep chasing your dream. That could be a 1 week to 1 month delay, but it doesn't mean you have to give up. To me, morale means keeping yourself positive and moving toward what you want, even when everything else is negative and horrible.

#1 makes me think of a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates type. #2 is more optimistic.

But what if you started optimistic, but after years of dealing with stupid people who can't even write decent emails, your morale has fallen so low you can't stay excited?

Is there any way to recover, short of wiping your memory of the past and starting out innocent and optimistic again?

Or is that part of what makes it an exclusive trait of the successful, because it is very hard to stay optimistic over the long haul, therefore only a handful actually succeed...

Maybe the pharma industry can make "stay optimistic" drugs just for startups...