As expected from a book geared towards a mainstream audience, Free is not as practical as it could be. Most of the book are company stories and economy history. Although they were interesting, I was looking for more detailed data on free business models.
Nevertheless, there were some bits I loved to read like the “How can X be free?” sections (example: “How can everything in a store be free?” about the SampleLab stores), or the list 50 business models built on free. An entertaining book, but don’t expect to create a business model only around its concepts.
I bought the paperback version, but you can read it or hear it for free online.
Finished reading The Art of Start and it’s really good. I’m lending it to my partner in crime, since it’s full of valuable pragmatic instructions.
Although some advices apply to large venture capital funding, most are universal to any startup. I specially liked the pitching tips (the 10/20/30 rule, take notes…) and the The Art of Schmoozing:
- Get out
- Ask good questions, then shut up
- Follow up
- Read voraciously
- Give favors
If you’ve seen Guy’s presentation and liked it, you will love the book.
Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath, is a book on how to promote your ideas so they “stick” on people’s heads. The authors analyse why some ideas are catchy while others quickly forgotten, and present the key features an idea must have to be “sticky”. Those features, coined under the acronym SUCCESs, are:
Simple
Find the core of your message and focus on transmitting only the really important part.
Unexpected
Break patterns to get attention and use teasers to hold attention.
Concrete
Real examples triumph over abstract concepts, if you want to spread an idea.
Credible
Use life examples. Take advantage of both authorities and anti-authorities.
Emotional
Make people care: switch their brains from the analytical side to the emotional side.
Stories
Stories can inspire, get people to act, and stay much longer in everyones heads.
The best value from the book comes from the concrete suggestions on how to solve specific problems like “Everyone nods their heads when I’m speaking, but I can’t get them to act on it.” An important resource for anyone doing marketing or trying to change to world.
Read this book some months ago. Paul Carr, who is now blogs at TechCrunch, writes about his “not-entirely-successful” adventures as entrepreneur. You can download it for free.
More than anything, it’s an entertaining reading. The author hasn’t what you could call a perfect character, and that adds much to the plot. If after reading it, you get curious about the participants, check out their twitter list.
Close to the same topic, but fiction, I found two interesting books on this Fred Wilson’s post: Grumby by Andy Kessler and Makers by Cory Doctorow (which you can also download for free).
