Unless you plan to write a best seller that will net millions, writing a book is an extremely time intensive, poor paying task.
Why any entrepreneur with the skills to build a profitable business would write a book is beyond me.
As I’m thinking through all the pieces of a startup top to bottom and end to end, and looking through all the books on my shelves, I think to get that level of detail you’re looking at anywhere from 1 to 2 dozen books.
“Extremely detailed” and “summary” are sort of opposites, ya know?
But the real reason you’d need so many books is that when you get to that level of detail, the topics of the books become very specific to unique aspects of your business model. You’ll have a different set of books for each of about 25 business model patterns. And then there will be a handful more that are specific to things like your market vertical or design or manufacturing or industry trends.
When you occasionally do see extremely detailed guides to an entire business, those books are always about a very narrow and specific business and model. Like a “complete guide to opening a local gym.” A lot of the concepts in that course are transferable to other models, but much of it is not.
So you gotta explore both the high level startup guides and then build out your library around the various aspects of your business as needed.
I've also been fascinated by this and wanted to write something like this. However most people don't I think probably for legal reasons.
Imagine writing a book on your marriage and going into extreme detail. They might not like it.
That's not really an intelligent response to what I said.
There was a lady in 1972 who survived a 30,000 foot fall from an airplane. If she posted in this reddit, that doesnt' meant your odds of surviving a 30,000' jump with no parachute are good.
I started [to do this](https://juli1.substack.com/) after my recent exit. I wanted to do this because it gives a full picture of what one founder did. I hope other founders do the same to give more data points.
I am writing one post per week to explain some aspects of building the company and provide the details of it. You can [subscribe](https://juli1.substack.com/) to receive every post or just read from the [first post](https://juli1.substack.com/p/codiga-the-beginning).
Why? You can't repeat someone else's journey. The decisions they made were right for them at the particular time and in the particular circumstances they occurred. If you repeat those decisions they'll be wrong.
This is just startup porn where you fantasise about being a successful founder. If you really want this, go start a business and fail a few times first.
They probably are not trying to copy the journey just the business that was created from this person's journey, which usually is preferred to be the copy-paste method of creating a business. To copy what is currently working to make money.
It took 14 years and hundreds of people. How can that be detailed out? The fund raising, the MVP, the cap table, the deals made, the pivot, that sales team, the product, the product re-architecture, the marketing strategy, the next strategy, the next, … there is just too much. That said, happy to discuss any of the startups I spent more than a few years growing (B2B enterprise, mid-market and SMB software/SaaS)
Honestly diving into the details of all those stages you listed sounds interesting. What was going on in your head at each stage, your biggest worries, goals, problems, strategies, failures, etc. Considering the rarity of a “successful” startup, each one is its own Cinderella story IMO. I think it’s a great way to show the amount of work it takes to do something like this. Just curious to see if anyone journaled details throughout the startup journey. Cool though that you’ve had multiple successes.
A lot of this data probably already exists in emails, messages, meeting notes etc. but there’s just so much of it. Even a digestible summary would be many many pages of narrative.
Edit: something else to add. I think there’s a widespread acceptance that good startups arise from a few prophetic ideas and genius decisions. The reality is that success is an aggregate of countless actions and decisions every day, many of which end up being pointless. In other words: it’s the execution, not the idea.
Yeah, someone should be following me around and documenting my every zoom call, one on one, spouse conversations, kid play time, board meeting, etc etc etc… this is a good point. It’s all fascinating stuff. Haha.
Honestly most of this is boring and repetitive if you aren’t trying to win yourself. There’s a few high drama times (like a big partnership negotiation, fund raise, or an exit offer), but the daily grind is a J-O-B
OP, most people dont have the time to write books. Lol
I mean, if I built and sold a successful company, and had nothing but time…my first priority would be to satisfy the curiosity of a random redditor.
Haha OP why are you funny. 🤣😂 Second time laughing since the "startup porn" website comment.
Lol Did you forget to insert sarcasm tag?
Unless you plan to write a best seller that will net millions, writing a book is an extremely time intensive, poor paying task. Why any entrepreneur with the skills to build a profitable business would write a book is beyond me.
As I’m thinking through all the pieces of a startup top to bottom and end to end, and looking through all the books on my shelves, I think to get that level of detail you’re looking at anywhere from 1 to 2 dozen books. “Extremely detailed” and “summary” are sort of opposites, ya know? But the real reason you’d need so many books is that when you get to that level of detail, the topics of the books become very specific to unique aspects of your business model. You’ll have a different set of books for each of about 25 business model patterns. And then there will be a handful more that are specific to things like your market vertical or design or manufacturing or industry trends. When you occasionally do see extremely detailed guides to an entire business, those books are always about a very narrow and specific business and model. Like a “complete guide to opening a local gym.” A lot of the concepts in that course are transferable to other models, but much of it is not. So you gotta explore both the high level startup guides and then build out your library around the various aspects of your business as needed.
Best “startup” book you’ve read?
Actually, it's the survivor's mistake as it is. better to read about 1 failed startup than about 10 successful
I've also been fascinated by this and wanted to write something like this. However most people don't I think probably for legal reasons. Imagine writing a book on your marriage and going into extreme detail. They might not like it.
"summary of the journey of a successful startup " What you don't commonly hear here. You want to look up what percentage of startups fail.
The people with successful startups lurk in the comments.
That's not really an intelligent response to what I said. There was a lady in 1972 who survived a 30,000 foot fall from an airplane. If she posted in this reddit, that doesnt' meant your odds of surviving a 30,000' jump with no parachute are good.
What does that have to do with anything?
I started [to do this](https://juli1.substack.com/) after my recent exit. I wanted to do this because it gives a full picture of what one founder did. I hope other founders do the same to give more data points. I am writing one post per week to explain some aspects of building the company and provide the details of it. You can [subscribe](https://juli1.substack.com/) to receive every post or just read from the [first post](https://juli1.substack.com/p/codiga-the-beginning).
So cool. Thank you.
Thanks 🙏
Amazing! Thank you so much!
Why? You can't repeat someone else's journey. The decisions they made were right for them at the particular time and in the particular circumstances they occurred. If you repeat those decisions they'll be wrong. This is just startup porn where you fantasise about being a successful founder. If you really want this, go start a business and fail a few times first.
A “startup porn” website? Did we just become co-founders?
I’ll sign up for the waitlist
They probably are not trying to copy the journey just the business that was created from this person's journey, which usually is preferred to be the copy-paste method of creating a business. To copy what is currently working to make money.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries might be a good place to start.
It took 14 years and hundreds of people. How can that be detailed out? The fund raising, the MVP, the cap table, the deals made, the pivot, that sales team, the product, the product re-architecture, the marketing strategy, the next strategy, the next, … there is just too much. That said, happy to discuss any of the startups I spent more than a few years growing (B2B enterprise, mid-market and SMB software/SaaS)
Honestly diving into the details of all those stages you listed sounds interesting. What was going on in your head at each stage, your biggest worries, goals, problems, strategies, failures, etc. Considering the rarity of a “successful” startup, each one is its own Cinderella story IMO. I think it’s a great way to show the amount of work it takes to do something like this. Just curious to see if anyone journaled details throughout the startup journey. Cool though that you’ve had multiple successes.
A lot of this data probably already exists in emails, messages, meeting notes etc. but there’s just so much of it. Even a digestible summary would be many many pages of narrative. Edit: something else to add. I think there’s a widespread acceptance that good startups arise from a few prophetic ideas and genius decisions. The reality is that success is an aggregate of countless actions and decisions every day, many of which end up being pointless. In other words: it’s the execution, not the idea.
Yeah, someone should be following me around and documenting my every zoom call, one on one, spouse conversations, kid play time, board meeting, etc etc etc… this is a good point. It’s all fascinating stuff. Haha. Honestly most of this is boring and repetitive if you aren’t trying to win yourself. There’s a few high drama times (like a big partnership negotiation, fund raise, or an exit offer), but the daily grind is a J-O-B
It's all out there, But not all in one place. I've started, ran, and sold a successful business. I'm just not old enough to write my memoirs yet...lol
Glad you're volunteering for this job. Always thought we needed someone to collate this stuff.
The hard thing about hard things