Business Startups Entrepreneurship

The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (Summary)

by Guy Kawasaki

You've been asked to pitch your revolutionary idea to a room full of impatient venture capitalists. You have one shot. What do you do? Most people cram 60 slides with tiny text into an hour-long presentation. Guy Kawasaki's advice is brutally simple and effective: The 10/20/30 Rule. Your pitch must have only 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and use a font no smaller than 30 points. It's a formula that forces clarity and respects people's time, making it nearly impossible to fail.

Ditch the Mission Statement, Create a Mantra

Forget long, jargon-filled mission statements that nobody can remember. Instead, distill your company's purpose into a simple, three-to-four-word mantra that is meaningful and memorable for every employee and customer.

Nike's mantra isn't a paragraph about athletic performance; it's simply "Authentic athletic performance." Wendy's is "Healthy fast food." These short phrases immediately communicate the core value and purpose of the business.

Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom

Don't get fixated on a single, narrow vision of your target customer. Launch your product and see who actually uses it and for what purpose. You'll often discover unexpected and more profitable markets by embracing how people adapt your creation.

Avon was founded by a door-to-door bookseller who gave away perfume samples to get his foot in the door. He soon discovered his customers were far more interested in the perfume than the books, so he pivoted the entire company to cosmetics.

Perfect Your Pitch, Then Your Product

Before you spend years building the perfect product, you need to perfect your pitch. Being able to explain your business clearly and concisely is the first step to getting funding, attracting talent, and making sales. A great pitch validates the idea itself.

The best pitches tell a story. Instead of listing features, start with, "I know a high school teacher who spends four hours a night grading papers..." This humanizes the problem and immediately engages the audience before you even mention your solution.

Hire Infected People

Don't hire for skills and experience alone. The best early employees are "infected" with a genuine love for your product and its purpose. Their passion will fuel them through the inevitable hardships of a startup and will be contagious to customers.

The early employees at Apple weren't just brilliant engineers; they were evangelists who believed they were changing the world. They would work around the clock because they were driven by the mission, not just the paycheck.

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