Customer Reviews

My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A captivating read and a candid story of Ben's startup experience with Comcate. If you thought your young age and `lack of business acumen and experience' was working against you, think twice after learning how Ben handled his business pitches at the ripe business age of fourteen. The story comes to life on every page and offers countless advice - I couldn't help it, I read it in one sitting. A must read for any entrepreneur, both seasoned and new to the game.

Ben Casnocha's book is a disarming tale of a startup told by an young entrepreneur who, instead of trumpeting his tale as a tribute to his own genius, shares the real inside story, a roller coaster of a journey. Ben's story shows the value of being humble enough to ask questions when you don't understand and being determined enough to put one foot in front of the other and build a real business. I especially appreciate the way Ben portrays the crucial role of mentors in his successful business. In addition, Ben clearly understands one thing that often evades entrepreneurs (young and old) : the value proposition of a business must be defined from the customer's point of view. And Ben's story does hinge on what I call the twin devils that plague all entrepreneurs: cash flow and people issues.

The book has interesting discussions of many practical issues, including how to: teach yourself about finance and accounting, build a board, ask the right questions in a sales pitch, find the right kind of money, pay close attention to detail when presenting, and move a product from small scale to large scale.

It would be tempting to focus on Ben's age (indeed, he is a whiz-kid in every sense of the word), but I think the real value of the story is that it has so much in common with entrepreneurs of all ages. Ben struggled to be a "normal high school kid" in the same way I see many talented entrepreneurs struggle to reconcile their own highly empowered view of life with others who are on more passive tracks. Most of Ben's mistakes are not a function of being young, but a function of being human and therefore fallible at times. His successes are equally disconnected from age and result from an unyielding personal commitment to his passion to make his business work and the desire to hear "yes" instead of "no" from the Universe.

Probably the most compelling part of Ben's story is his description of the product development process. What Ben calls the "long hard slog" is the process of taking Comcate from a piece of software initially created from a an simple sketch sent by a teen-aged American to a young programmer working overseas to a consistent product, designed for scale and focused on "good revenue" (money coming from product features that don't require extensive support). The slog is where Ben seems to have learned the critical life lessons that will surely help himpursue his entrepreneurial vision.

Ben's book does have two specific messages that I think are extremely important to high school and college audiences. One of them is to manage your "personal brand." In this You-tube, MySpace, facebook world, young people tend to forget that future recruiters and investors will quickly find the footprints students are leaving in the digital world right now. I would love to see more high-schoolers and college students resist the urge to share their most intimate moments with the rest of the world in the name of social networking. The second message is the call to be philanthropic. Entrepreneurship education understandably attracts individuals with ambitious income goals, but many do not understand the power of using that wealth in philanthropic ways.

Ben ends his book with an interesting reading list. We hope in future editions, he'll include a "Listening List" from Cornell eClips (www.eclips.cornell.edu )!

Bold, insightful, and clearly from the heart, Ben Casnocha's story is the manual for young people looking to join the adult world on their own terms. Throughout his book, Casnocha cleverly intertwines fundamental life lessons with genuine first-hand anecdotes. The result is a unique and astoundingly refreshing story that I urge everyone, young and old, to have on the top of their list for summer reading.

My Start-up Life is a rare 'business book' that is both entertaining as well as educational. Ben Casnocha, through the tale of his founding a technology company while in high school, has created a compelling, interesting and fun coming of age story -- about both the young man himself as well as for the 'teen years' of his startup. This would be a great book to give to high school students who are interested in starting their own businesses -- but it isn't just a 'kid' book. Quite to the contrary, entrepreneurs of all ages will find useful, hard-won lessons in Ben's story. Highly recommended.

Casnocha is wiser than most people who are three times his age. My Start-up Life is the best gift you can buy your teenage son or daughter ... it will give them confidence in their own abilities and courage to take on new challenges. But you might want to buy two copies as you'll find yourself getting just as much out of it. Ben's crisp writing and interesting anecdotes gave me and sense of adventure and fun while learning a great deal about business. It is Harry Potter meets Good to Great.

The story is oriented around Ben's experiences as a teenager trying to deal with the pressures of both teenage and adult "business / entrepreneurship" life simultaneously. He does a magnificent job of articulating the characteristics of a startup without being preachy and weaves in a number of vignettes from experienced friends and colleagues. It is simultaneously personal, educational, and emotionally deep.

At times you'll find books that have one or the other (honesty or usefulness) and they're ok. At times you have neither and they stink.

This time Ben has written a book that is both and it manifests as a book that is worth reading, keeping and referencing. It's nice that an author can write a book and keep it understandable and compelling.

The way he describes the difficulties of the life of an entrepreneur coupled with the confusingly and at times contradictory life of a high school student is fascinating. I think it's a wonderful example that academics as a means to produce business leaders is not necessarily on target.

I can't see why this wouldn't be the type of book that shouldn't be required reading for college (or even high school) students. I bet it would be difficult to do however because I'm not sure teachers know how to handle the subjects that Ben looks at.

Finally, the book proves that an author can speak from the heart and share real life advice for readers without us feeling like we're being lectured.

I highly recommend the book.

Ben Casnocha nearly died one day on Highway 101 because he obsessively checked his BlackBerry while speeding to a meeting with a client. (His car spun three times and crashed in the center median, but he survived.) Casnocha's startup, Comcate, went on to become the leading provider of software that enables citizens to communicate with their local governments. At the time, Casnocha was 14 years old.

In an era when wannabe teenage moguls pore over bestselling (and often vapid) get-rich-young guides like "The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens: Eight Steps to Having More Money Than Your Parents Ever Dreamed Of," "Reallionaire," and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad for Teens: The Secrets About Money That You Don't Learn in School," Casnocha was an early adopter of the notion that his success need not be limited by his age. Inspired at 12 by a "Think Different" ad and a homework assignment to build a website, instead, he launched a company. (After opening up MS Word for the first time to send out press releases about a "12 year old entrepreneur," he quickly found himself interviewed on TV news. He then hired a coder in Bangladesh to build the product, after dispatching a memo to his dad requesting a loan.)

Thankfully, Casnocha is not some vacuous self-promoting snotnose who lucked or schmoozed his way into premature dot-com celebrity. This book is a candid, hilarious, and surprisingly profound entrepreneurial guide-cum-autobiography that contains a considerable amount of earned wisdom for someone whose first highschool reunion will take place a decade from now. Casnocha has a easygoing, articulate and humane voice that already puts him in the upper echelons of "business" writers; to put it brutally, he even has a chance of surviving his early stardom with his soul and heart intact.

One of the sustaining myths of the digital economy is that, in e-business, no one knows you're a kid. Bill Gates launched Microsoft when he was 19. Apple hired Chris Espinosa's mom along with Chris (Apple employee #8) so she could drive him to work in Steve Jobs' garage. Casnocha's book is the best insider account of the weird subculture of teenage CEOs, dispensing useful advice to aspiring capitalists while casting an appropriately wary eye on the notion that the most valuable thing you can do in highschool is to make a cool million.

In case you don't yet know the story, Ben Casnocha started a successful dot-com at the ripe old age of 12. Then, at age 14 -- in the great tradition of the many serial entrepreneurs who preceded him -- Ben started another dot-com, Comgate Inc., which has since become a leading e-government software provider for local governments around the United States. By the time Ben graduated from high school, he had already done and experienced more in business than many people twice his age. That alone would make Ben's story interesting, but wait -- there's more! As it turns out, Ben Casnocha is an extremely smart guy, and his perspectives on business and on life in general are mature far beyond his years, and well worth reading. My Start-Up Life is chock-full of insightful observations and business advice, and you can't help but learn valuable lessons from Ben's short start-up life. If you're thinking of starting a business, you'll learn exactly what it takes to build a successful organization. If you're already in business, you'll learn something new that will make you even more effective than you already are. And if you would simply like to read how one American teenager took a road less traveled -- and found himself in the process -- then you've come to the right place. If nothing else, you'll get a good laugh from some of Ben's missteps along with way. I recommend this book highly.

Ben has an interesting story to tell. He first got involved in
the tech boom when he was 12, and by high school he was heading a
multi-million dollar company. What makes his book interesting to me,
however, is that it bypasses the rah-rah, self-congratulation common
among the young entrepreneur set, instead capturing, with remarkable
lucidity, the complexities of trying to balance being a teenager and
running a business. It also replaces the generic advice endemic to the
genre ("follow your dreams and it will all work out") with practical
mediations on issues such as the role of luck in big successes and the
proper care and feeding of mentors.

In the end, this is a serious guide, that goes a long way toward deconstructing and explaining what exactly allows the Bens of the world to do what they do...an insightful read, highly recommended.