The Startup Way by Eric Reis - Reviews
Not for us!
As part of our ongoing series looking into creative battles, we have our next book the Startup Way by Eric Reis, (ISBN: 978-0-241-19726-4). The book here is written by Eric Reis, who is a person that is very deep in the Silicon Valley infrastructure and writes his books from that perspective. He has a pervious book which he references endlessly in this book called the Lean Startup. Having not read that one, I feel like it may have been a better book to read.
Not a recommendation
I won´t bury the lead on this review. This book isn´t for the small business creatives and artists that I have sought to support in these reviews. The book itself, speaks of the way that entrepreneurial management styles should be applied to businesses. Specifically, the Silicon Valley startup method, values and processes. The book here is looking to take the tools and methods that have built silicon valley and seeks to apply it to existing businesses. The problem is this is entirely focused on a corporate environment.
The author throughout the book speaks of his experiences and stories of when he´s been looking at traditional large corporations and how to apply the ideas of entrepreneurial development and methods to existing corporate frameworks.
Now as someone very familiar with corporate structures, I do agree with the author that most corporations do not have a method for internal entrepreneurship and change management in house, and that does lead to a static environment in most corporations.
The issue I have with this book however is seems from the light of not my previous experience but the audience I have here. This book doesn´t apply to our audience or small business. Some parts may however this is largely for Startups and that world has a whole series of methods and support. The book doesn´t really apply to our readers and from that perspective I don´t recommend it.
Name dropping manifesto?
As we now know this doesn´t apply to our small business creatives and artists, I do want to comment on the books general content. This is a terrible book. Aside from the small credit I will give it for highlighting that corporate structures bind and stifle change and entrepreneurship, everything else, in this book is mostly useless. The author namedrops hundreds of people, all the are irrelevant, I appreciate he works with these many people in his business, I don´t care. I don´t care if they were VP of toilet sales, They mean nothing to me. Stop it. There are 5 names per page and none of them have insights except those that fluff up the author. It´s weird filler in the book. Secondly the back fifty pages are part manifesto and social commentary but from a silicon value bro, which first ages like milk and additionally is weird to have in a book about startups.
Summary
Goes without saying you can skip this book unless you´re looking at a corporate career that needs to transition into a start up like entrepreneurial work methodology. If, however, you don´t find yourself on that path your good to give this a miss. I hold fast to my lived experience that Silicone Valley can´t really teach normal people anything.
If you´re not looking for the insight of bros and want insights specific to your business and situation then why not reach out to me on DM or Email, to schedule a free first session. We´ll focus on your business and see where we can support you to build up your business dreams.
Thank you for your time.
Tim H.
Lead Consultant,
