Lost and Founder
A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World
2018 • 272 pages
Ratings6
Average rating4.5
15
A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World
Ratings6
Average rating4.5
'You won't find a more honest, raw and helpful look into the trenches of founding a tech startup than this book' Nir Eyal, author of Hooked 'Rand Fishkin is the real deal' Seth Godin, entrepreneur and author ----------- Everyone knows how a startup story is supposed to go: a young, brilliant entrepreneur has an cool idea, drops out of college, defies the doubters, overcomes all odds, makes billions and becomes the envy of the technology world. This is not that story. Rand Fishkin, the founder and former CEO of Moz, is one of the world's leading experts on SEO. Moz is now a $45 million a year business, but Fishkin's business and reputation took 15 years to grow, and his startup began not in a Harvard dorm room but as a mother-and-son family business that fell deeply into debt. Now Fishkin pulls back the curtain on tech startup mythology, exposing the ups and downs of startup life that most CEOs would rather keep secret. For instance: a minimally viable product can be destructive if you launch at the wrong moment. Growth hacking may be the buzzword du jour, but initiatives to your business can fizzle quickly. Revenue and profitability won't protect you from layoffs. And venture capital always comes with strings attached. In Lost and Founder Fishkin reveals the mostly awful, sometimes awesome truth about startup culture with the transparency and humour that his hundreds of thousands of blog readers have come to love. Fishkin's hard-won lessons are applicable to any kind of business environment and this book can help solve your problems, and make you feel less alone for having them. ----------- 'This is a truly courageous book. It's one part business-building guide and two parts Indiana Jones-style adventure memoir' Chris Guillebeau, author of Side Hustle and The $100 Startup 'Rand Fishkin is like the industry friend we all wish we had - funny, warm, and refreshingly honest about the rollercoaster ride that is founding your own company' Julie Zhou, VP of Product Design at Facebook
Reviews with the most likes.
Short, intense, honest, and helpful. I heard Rand in an interview - I think maybe on Indie Hackers (aside, great podcast). The book has been in my to read for sometime. Essentially, I see this narrative as a salve for those in the thick of starting up. It is a reminder of what you need to do, stand to lose or gain, and one path through. Ultimately, it seems a lot of what Rand has to say must still be pushed and struggled through...and not just chosen from a book.
Good luck, fellow founders!
Supreme in its practical knowledge. I found in it the stuff I looked for in other startup books.
This book definitely deserves 5 stars for its new insights and candid storytelling, but I have mixed feelings.
It's been eye-opening in getting a better understanding of things like a VC's perspective or keeping focus while growing (instead of diversifying too much). However, the honesty of Rand can be very intentionally painful and makes you wonder if he would really learn from his mistakes, even though he wrote a whole book about his learnings.
