Customer Reviews

A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Like other reviewers have noted, this book is aimed at a very particular audience: successful executives with significant experience, starting a technology company.

I figured I was close enough to that audience that I'd love the book. Turns out, I was wrong. This book is overwhelmingly focused on enterprise companies. I am the CEO of a consumer-focused company, and felt like the book was misleadingly positioned. Maybe "Basic Training for Entrepreneurs selling into the Enterprise" wouldn't have been as catchy... but it would be much more accurate.

I also found Rob's book troubling for softer reasons. For me, probably the most important decision I ever made was my choice of co-founders. Absolutely, you want a smart team just like Rob recommends... but you also want a team of people you can *trust* with your life. I was surprised by Rob's total focus on hard skills/experience in hiring.

But upon reflection, his focus on hard skills makes sense here, since the book is overwhelmingly about making money. If you want to build a team of people who want to change the world... or make a difference... this book is not for you. I'm not talking about non-profits or government; I'm talking about creating products that have an impact on the world (Apple, Sony, Google, Harley, Ben & Jerry's, Intuit, etc.).

This book has zero talk about creating a shared sense of purpose/mission. That's ok, because companies targeting the enterprise rarely have that sort of vibe. That's too bad, because I think that every company can use a "soul". And to be frank, creating a sense of purpose/mission can dramatically increase customer and employee retention. Maybe all this soft stuff can translate into hard dollars after all...

This excellent book describes the early start up stage of a new business in great detail. The author has experience with pre-funded start-ups and their efforts to validate their markets. There are few books that describe this early stage activity for entrepreneurs, where it's difficult to judge a market. Thus, this book is highly recommended.

Pluses
- Puts proper weights on crucial start up tasks with an emphasis on the execution team. The author says execution and the execution team is more important than the idea. He makes a good point but I don't think having a good execution team is adequate reason to create a startup. You still need an organizing idea that offers overwhelming advantage.
- Recommends that you apply new technology to existing market to ease an existing pain. He particularly likes applying new technologies to business processes (of course Dell is one of the examples here).
- Asks you to repeatedly hypothesize and then prove/disprove the pain of your prospects. The area of customer need has to have a felt pain. The search for pain increases the likelihood of success, and makes marketing easier.
- Recommends rigorous upfront market research into prospects and influencers. Talk to at least 100 potential customers. After doing this the author says the business plan is easier to write.
- I liked his comments on talking to affinity groups, trade pubs, user groups, trade shows, and industry influencers.
- Get to the market quickly with a product that solves their immediate pain.

Minuses
- Relies on quantitative market research for initial phase instead of one-on-one. His defense is that our goal is to be doing market research, not selling our solution. However, I believe the best market research comes from one on one discussions. See Barry Feig's books on market research for more on this, "Marketing Straight To the Heart" etc..

Questionable Items
- Your idea does not have to be unique. "There is no new idea." To the author, ideas are commodities, it's teams that can execute that are scarce. While I agree, I can't see starting up a company unless you have a competitive advantage that goes beyond our subjective opinion of a start-up crew.
- First to market is no big thing, it's an unsustainable advantage. Execute to dominate, not define a space. I generally disagree, but he makes a good point. I also believe in first mover advantage made popular by Geoffrey Moore ("Crossing the Chasm") and also in Ries's recommendation to create a new niche to dominate (See "The Origin of Brands" by Al and Laura Ries). But I also believe, like the author suggests, great execution is often a deciding factor. I think he gives these other ideas short shrift because he sees so many companies failing on execution.
- Partner, partner, partner. I think the startup should try for a complete product rather than give up large pieces of the solution. But I can see how some situations demand this.

There's a lot more to this book than the few points I listed above. He gives more details on the execution team which were particularly good.

Overall, I think this is an excellent book. It should be required reading for all MBA students of entrepreneurial studies as well as anyone in the early stages of a startup who is trying to validate the company's market.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

After starting a couple of businesses, and running into every kind of possible start-up problem. I'm always looking for good practical advice from others who've worked with start-ups to help me avoid making dumb mistakes and wasting precious time. I picked up Rob Adam's book because after reading a few pages at the bookstore, and it became obvious this was not one of those typical "succeed by connecting the right dots" method books for arm chair techno-startup wannabes.

There was a lot of straightforward wisdom in his pages which I hope to draw on when I get stuck in a crisis situation (which is usually every day).

Several things stand out in this book:
1) Validate your market. Very true, common sense advice. He gives a clear guideline for how his company structures this process. Might not work for everyone scrambling to survive, but the point is still there. Do the homework first.
2) Defines what is good money vs bad money.
3) Ideas are easy. It's the execution that counts.
4) People invest in people, not plans.

Some things that didn't really help:
1) Most of us are not connected enough to sip beers with big VC investors on a patio. (If a VC is reading, email me, and I'll fly over from Taiwan immediately to do some sipping with you!)
2) The kind of money that's being talked about is not readily available to most people these days.
3) The straight forward partnering concept that is so prevalent in the US, doesn't often work in other parts of the world.

Conclusion:
Well worth taking the time to read, think about, evaluate, and put into action. Can really help you if you are wandering off course in "business plan land¡¨.

I read the Art of the Start and Then I read this one... I think that "Art" had more practical information and was a much more pleasant read. Although the concepts can be applied to many types of startups, It seems to concentrate on technology companies. Both books are very motivating, and very similar.

This book is decent. Another good one to try is www.antiventurecapital.com .

I couldn't read more than half of this book!

Although there is good advice in this book, it is nearly impossible to sift through the heavy self-promotion to get there. Rob Adams is more concerned with telling you how he and his companies have made all the right decisions than he is in educating.

Every other paragraph is about how he has corrected some mis-guided sole with THE right way to do something. He never allows for the fact that there are often multiple successful approaches. He thinks he has the formula nailed for everything a business person will ever come across.

And, he has either never made a mistake in his life or isn't willing to admit it in this book.

If you like reading about how Rob "set them straight. fast." several dozen times, buy this book. If arrogrance annoys you, don't waste your money.

This book is a standout for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it is written with the perspective and insight of one who has been on the other side of the table. It becomes obvious early on when reading "A Good Hard Kick in the Ass" that Adams understands what investors look for when deciding on businesses to fund. His emphasis on developing a solid management team and truly understanding your target market constitute vital components to increasing firm value. Too many would-be entrepreneurs focus on writing a business plan, spending months and valuable resources that could be better utilized elsewhere. A few years ago anyone with a company ending in 'dot-com' could get funding. Today, VCs and other early-stage investors are demanding much more. Adams presents a thorough and step-by-step analysis of key success factors in an insightful and readable fashion. One caveat - although Adams focuses in large part on the startup business, it should have been targeted to a broader audience. Most of the concepts that he preaches would be equally applicable to Fortune 500 companies that seem to easily forget what brought them success in the first place.

An excellent business guidebook-and not just for the startup.
I seldom read business books, but this one was stacked on a table at the bookstore and the title caught my eye. I was intrigued enough to buy a copy, and I'm very glad I did. Many of the points Adams makes are directly relevant to my own work situation-and I'm employed as a project manager in a large Fortune 500 business. (Not only is my company not a startup, but it's also not high tech.) For example, his market validation chapter is a complete gem. He first makes the point that most people, regardless of what they think, do not really understand their customers' needs. Then he presents a practical, step-by-step guide for getting to know your customers and discovering how you can, as he puts it, "solve their pain." Virtually any business would be wise to follow his advice on this issue-adapting their approach, of course, to fit particular businesses and types of customers. I also found very enlightening Adams's exploration of what he calls "execution intelligence"-the set of characteristics that enable a team to execute effectively-and of the core activities that constitute good marketing.

Again, while this book seems aimed at the startup, many if not most of his points apply directly to larger, more established businesses as well. Moreover, this is a lively engaging read that's both educational and thought-provoking. In fact, I found it so valuable that I plan to buy a few copies for other project managers in my office.

I'll keep it short and to the point. This book's strength and weakness is that it's written for the founding team with a stellar track record and easy access to venture capital. In other words, it's targetted at about 1% of the entrepreneurs launching businesses in any given year. The other 99% won't find much of the book's advice all that helpful. Instead they will need to jury-rig a venture together employing mere mortals and bootstrapped financing techniques. For this latter group, the book is not very helpful.

One big and very surprising mistake the author makes is recommending that far more time and energy be spent on researching an opportunity than is feasible in this day and age. Indeed he contradicts himself by speaking about the need for speed to market and then suggesting that anywhere from a minimum of 6 months to a year or more be invested into several iterations of research by the "team". He seems oblivious to the facts that 1) competitors will not wait for you, and 2) no one will bankroll a team to conduct a year of research which may not prove fruitful in the end.

Maybe he's writing for trustafarians?

This book is a good read if your team of Harvard MBAs recently took another company from zero to $100 million in 3 years. For the rest of us, it's not very helpful frankly.

I should add that I speak as someone who has launched and built a few companies over the years.

This is a highly organized and real world real experience "how to" book that should be owned by every business library and read by individuals considering a business startup.