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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Touchy-Feely Pablum,
By A Customer
This review is from: Bulldog: Spirit of the New Entrepeneur (Paperback)
This is the worst business book I've ever read, and I've read many. I actually returned it for a refund.How does a woman transform a graphic design company into a digital asset management company? You would be hard-pressed to find out reading this book. Does Rubin have any programming experience? How does she recruit and manage her team? How do they design the product? How do they combat competition? How do they get clients? These are questions the reader are interested in, and it would have been enlightening if Rubin answered them. She doesn't. What she did instead was recycle a lot of platitudes, buzzword-laden advice that you can get from magazines. She should have shared more of her experiences, in greater detail, rather wax philosophical on the idea of entrepreneurial spirit. It's the standard "entreprenuers are risk-taking forward-thinking heroes, and aren't I great as one" pablum. When I flipped through the book in the bookstore, I was excited to see a chapter that talks about going to "Mecca" (Silicon Valley). Finally, I thought, here's an account of how an outsider (a Canadian) establishes herself in Silicon Valley. After reading the chapter, I am no more enlightened than before. She simply writes that she made a lot of connections and that the experience was enriching, leaving one to ask: who? when? where? what? how? I can't remember the exact details of her Postcard Visualization exercise, but it's something like visualizing your life in 5 years as it would appear on a postcard. This is exactly the kind of touchy-feely "advice" that pervades the book. There is not a single original insight or concept. For this I should pay money to read?
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The good, the bad and the silly of entrepreneurship circa 1999,
By AliGhaemi (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bulldog: Spirit of the New Entrepeneur (Paperback)
If you can't stand the thought of seeing the word 'entrepreneur' at least 144,000 times in print then stop reading now. Ditto, if the claim to the phrase 'I entrepreneur' makes you feel silly, weird or overcome with a nauseating feeling of gimmickiness.
Bulldog: Spirit Of The New Entrepreneur is nominally the story of an entrepreneur (told you!) and her cohorts who dream, build, grow and eventually sell a new media/digital design/consulting/reseller/developer/software business in the grip of the dot-com boom. Consequently, much of the tale is overcome with the type of feel-good language and new age dramatics that might have seemed like eureka at the time, but eventually was partly the cause of the bust period that followed. Eureka turned into euphoria turned into you know what. The book does not stop there though. Rubin has no qualms about taking the reader into infinite tangents talking about her travels, her youth, her friends, her techniques, venture capital, selling and contemplating. She gives special emphasis and space to branding though. One should brand, she advises, even before one has a product. Did someone say dot-com bust? She did: "trend-hopping is the first step toward creating a business plan..." She tells a good story, confident of herself, although clearly knows more about visualization, hoping and networking than she does of process. There is a lesson right there of course, but if 'believing' was ever a kingdom she would be appointed its queen and that would be that. Most readers might not agree with fluffy touchy-feely new-ageism or believe creating a product was someone's destiny, but the author almost elevates the happenstance to a mystical level in all likelihood not heard of since Sufism. There is probably another lesson in there too. All this packed, like sardines, among numerous anecdotes and quotations galore. Unfortunately, most of these foretellers have since gone broke or disappeared. Although, to be fair, there is a lot of knowledge on those same pages. That is the dilemma of the book though. Hindsight being what it is Bulldog: Spirit Of The New Entrepreneur could be the zeitgeist of 1999; alas what most people associate with the excesses and the shortcomings of that period are also part of the package.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Inspiration,
By Graydon (NYC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bulldog: Spirit of the New Entrepeneur (Paperback)
Cudos to Rubin for shedding light on the ups, downs and excitment of running your own business. Although many of us have dreamed of being an entrepreneur there are few that are brave enough to take the leap of faith. Combine Rubin's tenacity and balls for starting a business in a mostly 'male dominated' industry with the strength and wherewithall to relive the experience and transcribe it into a book and you have nothing short of a modern day hero. Building a business from an office of two in Canada to securing major investors and partners in Silicon Valley and LA, Bulldog is the story of a modern day success driven by ambition, smarts and confidence. Using her insights to help guide us on this incredible journey called 'entrepreneuring' Rubin not only creates a new language for those voyagers who are brave enough to embark on the trip, but also provides the ABC's of how to believe in yourself enough to succeed. Rubin is insightful while still allowing the reader to feel like they have entered her world -- if you are someone who has always dreamed of starting your own business then don't even think about it unless you read this book first.The only question Rubin leaves us asking is: when is her second book coming out and what will she entice us with next???
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