Learning From Others: Founders At Work - J.Livingston
I recently read through (most of) “Founders At Work” by Jessica Livingston. The book’s idea and premise is as simple as it is brilliant: Interview the founders of well-known startups, print the interviews, and - hopefully - give the reader some insight into the workings of an IT startup.
What I didn’t like
Let’s start with one small detail I didn’t like, and get that out of the way as quickly as possible.
For my liking (especially as a non-US reader), the book’s interviews could have done with a bit more editing. They feel as though they’ve been printed more or less directly from the transcript. And people simply don’t always speak in ways that are suitable for print. In general, the tone of the book is fine and it’s quite enjoyable to follow the interviews. The first time, though, that I read
“… and I was like ‘Yeah. Let’s do that’. And he was all like positive.”
(quote from memory), that just made me want to throw up - into the book - then close the bloody thing and put it away. I’m sorry; I know I’m probably being overly critical. Reading language like that just hurts my eyes.
What I liked about the book
This book gives all the aspiring startup founders a feel that the other guys, who succeeded in something you’re just starting out on, are just human, make some of the same mistakes and bad choices, have some of the same bad experiences but were able to pull it off and make it work. There isn’t a single interview in this book where you think the person just succeeded due to some large piece of sheer dumb luck.
You don’t have to read the interviews in this book in order. You can jump right in and start with the ones which seem most interesting. Or which have the most bearing on your current situation (maybe because you’re doing something similar at the moment). The individual interviews are of moderate length. Most of them maybe a bit too long for a lunch break, but just right for good, light in-between reading.
It’s interesting and encouraging to read about founders who initially only wanted to develop something to scratch an immediate itch and who then had the ability and the drive (or sometimes just the balls!) to take it to the next level. Two guys are annoyed that they can’t access their eMail servers any more since their employer put up a firewall: Develop idea for Web-based email, get funding, start Hotmail, which they quickly grow into a multi-million-customer Web-Mail enterprise and then sell to Microsoft for US$ 400 million. One guy notices he has way too many blogs and bookmarks to check manually every day and figures he’s quite a decent server application developer — puts together a blog feed aggregator, calls it Bloglines, which he finally sells to AskJeeves. And the list goes on. So, basically — if you have a problem and you manage to develop a cool solution to it, chances are you’re not the only one with that kind of problem. Maybe you can build this into something that solves a problem for lots of users?
Fun quote:
“Nobody knows what a blog is and certainly nobody knows what aggregation is. Even these days, you say “Do you know what syndication is?” and they think ‘Seinfeld Reruns’.” (Mark Fletcher, Bloglines, FAW, p. 237)
Summary
Founders At Work is about the business, but it’s not a business book. This book doesn’t teach you about business strategies, about running your company, keeping your accounts in order. It also doesn’t teach you about how to approach VCs (or even whether to approach them at all). It isn’t about that. It’s about people who started something new, either with a lot of strategic planning or just out of serendipity, and built it into something successful. Or - as in the case of Ars Digita - something ultimately not so successful, but with some valuable lessons and interesting insights. This is a book I’m sure I’ll pick up over and over again to reread one of the interviews.
The book makes you feel good about yourself, feel good about the people profiled in it and makes you want to go out and grab the bull by the horns and, ahem, just do it. And what could be bad about that?
Postscript
What is it about these apress guys? Somehow they flew under my radar for quite some time and now I find my bookshelf filling up with their books, plus several more of their books on my Amazon wish list. I like the books they publish. I like the look and the layout of the books and the unassuming but recognizable style. Very nice! I’ll keep an eye on their list of upcoming titles.
Tags: founders at work; entrepreneurs; startups;book review.
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