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.

I decided to give MongoDB a try on a brand new rails project. It was also a change to get a bit familiar with the upcoming Rails 3 (there’s a release candidate now \o/).

I found two MongoDB adapters for rails: MongoMapper and Mongoid. Here’s an article with a comparison (thanks Tomé Duarte). After trying out the two on a really simple use case, I preferred working with Mongoid for 3 reasons:

• More Rails 3 alike (in validations, queries…)
• Better documentation
• Awesome web page design

I also used MongoHQ to try out their free plan for cloud hosting service. It’s very easy to use, but I’m still waiting for a good MongoDB front-end for inspecting my databases.

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.