The Startup Playbook: Founder–to–Founder Advice from Two Startup Veterans

Get the real guidance you need to create and build your first startup company from founders who have been there many times before. The first run printing of The Startup Playbook SOLD OUT! So, we revised, expanded, and improved this second edition, including a new foreword by Brad Feld, author of Venture Deals. We still give our personal, how-to guide for building your startup from the ground up. You'll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts we've learned that will shift the odds in your favor. We're sharing our tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion with you. We make no bones about our bias. We're on your side, the founder's side. While venture capitalists, investors, and accelerators/incubators can add great value in the startup ecosystem, this book isn't about their points of view. We'll tell you where our interests as founders diverge from those on the other side of the table—investors, bankers, advisors, board members, and others—and what to do when that happens. The Startup Playbook is not a recipe, it's not a template, it's not a list of tasks to do. It's our insider's guide to starting a company and running it successfully in those critical early months. Between us, we've started over a dozen high-tech software companies and raised over $500 million in investment capital. We've acquired over thirty-five companies, had three of our startups go public, sold six of them, and we made billions of dollars for shareholders. We've also invested in over eighty startups, advised and mentored over two hundred companies and actively worked with venture capitalists (VCs), incubators, and accelerators to help launch many other new startups. We've had plenty of failures, too. And we've probably learned more from those than from the successes. We share those lessons as well. The Startup Playbook is full of our advice, guidance, do's, and don'ts from our years of experience as founders many times. We want to share our hard-earned knowledge with you to make success easier for you to achieve. "This book is extraordinarily fresh and exciting. In an accessible, straight talk fashion, this book is a manual, and an inspiration. The Startup Playbook is smart and avoids the 'I am so smart' over-writing endemic to the genre. Read this as it is presented. You'll be doing yourself a tremendous favor." —Amazon Reviewer

Table of Contents:
Foreword xi Introduction 1 Part I: I Want to Start a Company 15 Chapter 1: What is a Startup? 17 Chapter 2: Why Start a Company? 25 Chapter 3: Am I Cut Out to Found a Startup? 33 Chapter 4: Qualities of a Founder 47 Part II: Getting Off the Ground 61 Chapter 5: How Do I Know If My Idea is Good or Not? 63 Chapter 6: Vetting Your Vision 75 Chapter 7: Product-Market Fit 89 Chapter 8: If You Build It, They Will Come 95 Chapter 9: Your Market 103 Chapter 10: Money—Getting It and Making It 113 Chapter 11: Getting Help 123 Chapter 12: Pulling the Founding Team Together 127 Chapter 13: Equity Splits 143 Chapter 14: Operating as a Founding Team 153 Chapter 15: How Do I Form My Company? 171 Chapter 16: Finance and Human Resources 193 Part III: Funding Your Startup 205 Chapter 17: Funding Basics 207 Chapter 18: Sources of Capital 221 Chapter 19: Prerequisites for Funding 247 Chapter 20: Running Your Fundraising Process 271 Chapter 21: Your First Investor Meeting 283 Chapter 22: What Happens after You’re Finished with Fundraising? 303 Part IV: Running Your Company 311 Chapter 23: How Do I Build and Deliver a Great Product? 313 Chapter 24: Making Your Customer Successful 325 Chapter 25: How to Get Customers 341 Chapter 26: Your Marketing Approach 353 Chapter 27: Sales and Distribution Strategy 369 Chapter 28: You Don’t Run Your Company, Your Culture Does 377 Chapter 29: Hiring and Managing Your Team 391 Chapter 30: Scaling the Company 413 Conclusion 421 Acknowledgments 427 About the Authors 429 Notes 431 Index 437