Category Archives: Book Reviews

Hackers and Painters – Review

I first really learned about Paul Graham while reading The Launch Pad. He is the well know founder of Viaweb (now Yahoo Store) and Y Combinator, he’s also an exceptional essayist. I find his writings very convincing, well-structured and insightful. Hacker and Painters (2008) is a collection of his essays published on his personal site.

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The essays address topics ranging from the unpopularity of nerds, the similarities between hacking and painting as well as why and how startups create wealth. Although I struggled with some of the chapters later in Hackers and Painters, which was focused on programming languages, I really enjoyed this it.

His resounding argument leaves no doubt that a small team of good, trusted programmers can outperform big companies. It is also clear that this combined with the increased productivity, free from any bureaucracy, creates new wealth. This newly created wealth that is obtained by hard work, sacrifice, and persistence is something society should encourage.

In fact, he offers an alternative view on the much discussed gap between rich and poor. Unlike most economists that would argue that the widening gap between rich and poor is bad for any society, Graham sees it as a sign that innovation, which creates new wealth, is encouraged. This innovation and newly created wealth leaves the whole society better off. He argues that it is absolute poverty not relative poverty that you want avoid.

Most of the last half of Hackers and Painters, Grahams discusses programming languages. By using his own startup (Viaweb) as an example he shows that picking the best fit in a programming language can give a startup a competitive advantage. That is something that I would have never considered. He also goes on to describe what he considers to be the dream language.

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Although I have already decided that I would like to learn to code. Hackers and Painters have forced me to ask a new question: Do I want to be a hacker?

I enjoyed Hackers and Painters, if you are interested in startups, hackers or programming, it is worth a read.

Founders at Work- Review

O Man! Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days was incredible. Jessica Livingston, the author, is one of the founding partners at Y Combinator. If you don’t know Y Combinator make sure you read ‘The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Most Exclusive School for Startups’. Livingston is married to Paul Graham another co-founder of Y Combinator.

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I found the collection of people interviewed in Founders at Work fantastic. It included software, hardware and web startups. The interviews were frank, thoughtful and inspiring. It really felt like it gave me some great insights into what all these people went through in building their business, including the highs and the lows. It was almost like reading a mini biography on each of the founders and their respective companies.

There are some awesome gems in this book, here is a few that had the most impact on me:

Steve Wozniak. – Apple. It was interesting getting his take on the start of Apple, having read the Steve Jobs book. It was also amazing how Wozniak build those first computers with the complete lack of resources especially money. It was a theme that occurred a few times in the book. More noticeable was when the founders did not raise money early, how the limitation in resources forced them to be more creative, and they felt looking back that was part of their success.

Paul Graham – Viaweb. Having read a few of his essays and a lot about Y Combinator, I didn’t think this chapter would be that interesting. I was mistaken, I loved it. The story about how they came up with the first web-based application. That is also where the name – Viaweb came from.

Philip Greenspun – ArsDigita. I was amazed how big some of the service/consulting businesses became in this era. Some of them then changed to product based, and many others seem to have hit a wall. ArsDigita was one that hit a wall, but not before Philip was pushed out by the VC, even though he was still a majority shareholder. After some litigation the VC eventually bought him out, but the business went under not long after that. His whole story about dealing with VC, although like always only one side of the story was very interesting.

Here is the full list of interviews included in Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Day’:

Max Levchin – Paypal. Sabeer Bhatia – Hotmail. Steve Wozniak – Apple. Joe Kraus – Excite. Dan Bricklin – Software Arts. Mitchell Kapor – Lotus Development. Ray Ozzie – Iris Associates, Groove Networks. Evan Williams – Pyra Labs – Blogger.com. Tim Brady – Yahoo. Mike Lazaridis – Research in Motion – Blackberry. Arthur van Hoff – Marimba. Paul Buchheit – Gmail. Steve Perlman – WebTV. Mike Ramsay – TiVo. Paul Graham – Viaweb. Joshua Schachter – del.icio.us. Mark Fletcher – ONElist, Bloglines. Graig Newmark – craigslist. Caterina Fake – Flickr. Brewster Kahle Wais – Internet Acrhive, Alexa Internet. Charles Geschke – Adobe Systems. Ann Winblad – Open Systems, Hummer Winblad. David Heinemeier Hansson – 37signals. Philip Greenspu – ArsDigita. Joel Spolsky – Fog Creek Software. Stephen Kaufer – Trip Advisor. James Hong – Hot or Not. James Currier – Tickle. Blake Ross – Firefox. Mena Trott – Six Apart. Bob Davis – Lycos. Ron Gruner – Alliant Computer Systems, Shareholder.com.

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Founders at Work: Stories of Startups Early Days’ is well worth the time to read, it is long but each chapter offers great insight into starting a tech business. Get a copy today!

Do More Faster

I am not usually a fan of books that are a compilation written by different authors. I tend to find then disjointed and without a well paced rhythm. But I really enjoyed the previous two books by Brad Feld so I wanted to give Do More Faster a try. Despite these challenges the book was very enjoyable, with great gems of information and advices throughout. The authors sorted the contribution according to themes to try and get more cohesion and succeeded to an extent.

Do More Faster is co-authored by David Cohen the co-founder and CEO of TechStars. The contributors from the book also are all connected to TechStars in some way. One thing I really enjoyed was the comments David and Brad would give after most of the piece by contributing authors.

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But as I mentioned there were some great bit and piece of advice here are some of my favourites:

Do quick releases, and get Feedback

This is a constant mantra of many of the software startup book I have read lately and is well explained in Do More Faster

Entrepreneurship is a team sport

This is the best articulation of this idea I have heard so far. It seams the odds are more in you favour in a multi founder startup. One of the arguments is that you need more than one person to keep the passion and enthusiasm going through some of the challenging times every startup face.

Vesting Founder shares

This was a really cool idea. And one I would have benefitted from 10 years ago. Instead give the founders of a company their entire allocation of share right of front. You make them vest over time. For example, if you had two founders who agree to split the shares 50/50. Instead if the vesting was done over 4 years, they will get a fifth of their shares at the start and then at the end of each of the next four years. This means if one of the founders leave after year one, at the end of the five years the share split will be 50/20.

83(b) filing

This is a very important piece of paper the founders of the business needs to complete upfront when they start a company with a vesting agreement. It saves the founders a huge tax liability later. Matt Galligan who writes this piece, didn’t file his 83(b) once and paid for it dearly.

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There quite a few great snippets of information like this in Do More Faster. It is worth a read if you will ever find yourself in a tech startup space. I enjoyed Do More Faster.

Rework – Book Review

It only took about 10 pages for me to realise I was going to love REWORK! It really describes the kind of business I dream about building. The guys from 37signals have built something truly special. A great tech business with a kick ass team based all over the world. They are working on solving significant problems, and creating a sustainable business.

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Like with most success stories one is quick to assume that they have the secrets to success. But like all the Jim Collins books (Good to Great, Build to Last Ect) you have to be careful what conclusions you come too. Only looking at the successes or “survivors” leads to something called survivor bias. It really means that although somebody has been successful with an approach, it does not equal that everybody with the same approach were successful.

But hey these guys make a really sound argument and they bring it across in a fresh and unique manner. They break every chapter into small chuck that takes aim at a specific point they are trying to make. Each point is preceded by a graphic depicting the punch line.

They see Rework as one of the by-products of building there business, and encourage other people building similar business to also look for by-products they can develop and sell to further enhance the sustainability of their businesses. Their thoughts seems to be very much in line with the Lean Startup approach, of launch early and get feedback. Execution is everything, make a decision and get into action.

They argue that business plans, budget and planning is general is a waste of time since we humans are fundamentally bad at making predictions. I agree and wish I learned that lesson much earlier in life. They also have a very refreshing look at raising money in a startup. First they caution – don’t start a startup – start a business! Getting external funding should be the last resort. Instead of looking to build something to flip, focus on building a sustainable business. You will make better decision and if the offer to sell comes, you can handle it.

Another whole chapter that would have been really valuable to me 5 years ago was on hiring. Hiring new people should be the last resort, don’t ever just through people at a problem. They explain a great concept of hiring managers of one! These are people who can manage their own productivity and get things done with the minimum input from their boss. They offer some insight into how to find people like this.

Another constant theme in Rework is around some of the advantages of being small. Like the ability to move quickly, to be free from the bureaucracy that consumes so much energy in large companies. You can own your mistakes, and apologise like a real person without having legal breathing down your neck. You are also able to, through consistent behaviour over a long time, create the culture where great people can do their best work.

==> Click here to buy: Rework<==

Man, I loved this book. I really look forward to create a company based on many of these principles. I don’t think it is possible to read this book and not want to start something to help change the world. You can do it 2!

Start reading Rework today, it is a short, entertaining an easy read.

You can follow the authors of Rework at @jasonfried (Jason Fried) and @dhh (David Heinemeier Hansson) and the company at @37signals

Startup Communities – Review

Since I really enjoyed Venture Deals, I was curious to read more books by Brad Feld. So I started ‘Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City’ hoping for more insight on the startup ecosystem. I was not disappointed; the book also further inspired me to part of this world in the future.

The book uses the history of Boulder, Colorado in the United States as the premise to describe a startup community. Feld refers to it as “The Boulder Thesis”. My perception from afar has long been that the tech startup world starts and ends almost exclusively with Silicon Valley. Well, that assumption has been properly crushed! In fact, this book paints such a great picture of Boulder that I feel the need to go see what it is like for myself.

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Feld makes a very strong case that a startup community needs to function as a bottom up inspired community that is led by entrepreneurs. If any other players in the ecosystem, like governments, lawyers, universities or venture capital firms (whom Feld refers to as followers) take a leadership role, the growth of the startup community will be throttled.

When Marisa Mayer recently took over as CEO of Yahoo, I was intrigued that Google did not have some form of non-compete or restraint agreement as part of her employment contract that would prevent her from going to a competitor. This book provided me an answer to this question: Non-Compete agreements are unenforceable in California. This seems to be one factor that helps to drive the health of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Silicon Valley.

The book also addresses one of the commonly perceived problems in many startup communities: the lack of Venture Capital. Since there will always be some imbalance in the supply and demand for startup capital, it is very important not to see venture capital and startup communities as the same thing. In today’s connected world capital increasingly will find worthy ideas to invest in no matter where they are located.

==> Click to buy: Startup Communities <==

I really enjoyed ‘Startup Communities’ and I really think it can add huge value to anybody looking to help create a vibrant Startup Community in their own city. I hope the leaders in Silicon Cape reads ‘Startup Communities’.