by Jerry Kaplan
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Product Description
In 1987, Jerry Kaplan embarked on every aspiring entrepreneur's dream--he formed his own company. Startup is Kaplan's riveting and insightful story about what it takes to create and maintain a company in he computer industry--and how to handle its remains when the world is not ready to accept what it proposes. This is both an inspiring personal account and a thrilling adventure story of what goes on behind the world of the computer screen.
Amazon.com Review
The founder of the visionary, yet doomed, GO Corporation kept notes throughout his years at the helm, thinking that one day he would produce a book. It shows. This is a vivid and lively rise-and-fall account of a company born to create a pen-based computer. It begins on a corporate jet with the author and fellow industry visionary Mitchell Kapor, founder of Lotus, sharing a vision of pen computing. From there, Startup quickly leaps to the day-to-day challenges of hiring staff, constantly reassessing and readjusting goals, and coping with the stress of endless rounds of venture capital funding. That Kaplan, in his first attempt at running a company, battles with the top forces at Microsoft, IBM, and other industry giants to bring the idea to market, only makes the story more compelling. His company's ultimate failure says more about a cutthroat industry than about the quality of Kaplan's product. This is a real David and Goliath tale. If you've ever wondered why things go right or wrong, how competition can kill you, or how financing really works within a small startup, read this book!
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 passes the smell test, 2008-09-17
Though not quite as riveting and fascinating as its author probably thought it was, this is still a passably interesting tale of a young tech company founded more on dreams and possibiliy (thanks to venture capitalists) than tangible reality (during its four year existence doesn't seem to bring any product to the market). This reads as a perfect how not to run a business - borrow too much of other people's money and underestimate the competition (Microsoft plays the big bad villain here, but there are also jabs at IBM and Apple, probably undeserved) that might be forgiveable if Kaplan was some naive 21 year old techie at the start, but he wasn't (late 30s).
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Classic startup tale, 2008-08-09
More than twenty years have passed since GO Corporation was founded (1987), but the lessons described by Jerry Kaplan still ring true today - the name of the company might as well be any new Web 2.0 startup. How do you turn an idea into a company? The financing, the partnership dance, working with your board and executive management, the technology race, and managing your personal life are all interwoven into a complex network of events that is a life of a startup. Aside from being a fascinating story, 'Startup' is a great text for any entrepreneur filled with dozens of useful quotes and insights.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure, 2008-04-01
Fascinating story of a (pre-dotcom-bubble) high-tech startup, written from the perspective of the founder. He does a great job of recounting the events, but doesn't breath much life into the characters (other than himself). This book might have been more interesting if it had been written by a neutral person who could have interviewed all the involved people and given us all sides of the story. To be fair, the author (in the end) puts the blame for the failure of the company with their inability to produce a marketable product fast enough (even though there is no shortage of people and organizations he could have blamed). So there's definitely a lot to be learned here -- just don't read this book with the hope of gaining much insight into the minds of the people involved in such ventures.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
An adventure in school of hard knocks, 2007-10-20
This is a great story told from someone who lived in the trenches, soared with the eagles and then fell to earth. A true tale of the ups and downs of an entrepreneur. Once I started the book, I couldn't put it down. Interestingly it is all pre-bubble which makes it even more spectacular. Any entrepreneur will love this.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Incredible overview / warning of the startup process, 2007-04-08
This is the most intense book that I think I have ever read. A real life story of doing everything you can while experiencing the pain and agony of getting squashed by forces much stronger than you.
If you want to understand how hard life can or needs to be in order to overcome it, if you want to understand what competition is really about, the READ THIS BOOK.
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