The Web Startup Success Guide (Books for Professionals by Professionals) [Paperback]

Bob Walsh (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1430219858 | ISBN-13: 978-1430219859 | Publication Date: July 29, 2009 | Edition: 1

For every one brick-and-mortal business that is created, there are ten web startups, begun by everyday folks who have development knowledge and access to a web browser. The Startup Success Guide is a highly readable, on-point text written by an authority in startup consulting. Packed with unique interviews with successful startups and their founders, and offering loads of practical advice and what-not-to-dos, this book clearly has a time and a place in today’s economy, where the ranks of un- and under-employed developers increases.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

If your startup is web-based, get this book. If you are creating Windows or Mac OS X desktop software, get my other book Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality amzn.to/eThgUs. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

About the Author

Bob Walsh is a developer, blogger, author, consultant, and podcaster. He currently blogs for CNET Webware about web apps (and in the past for Web Worker Daily and Lifehack.org), at his own blog (47Hats.com), and does a weekly podcast, The Startup Success Podcast. Walsh co-moderates the well-known Joel on Software Business of Software forum and has spoken on startup/microISV issues at the Software Industry Conference, the European Software Conference and the Business of Software Conference. He is the author of MicroISV: From Vision to Reality and Clear Blogging.

Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (July 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430219858
• ISBN-13: 978-1430219859
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My name is Bob Walsh ([e-mail]), and I believe that startups and microISVs (one-person software companies) represent the future of the global software industry and of the billion-person Internet to which we are all now connected. I believe this so strongly that this is my fifth book on the subject.

My previous books are Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality (Apress, 2006), Clear Blogging (Apress, 2007), MicroISV Sites That Sell! (ebook, 2008), and The Twitter Survival Guide, with Kristen Nicole (ebook, 2008).

In addition, I do a podcast with cohost Pat Foley (The Startup Success Podcast, at http://startuppodcast.wordpress.com) and write a blog (47 Hats, at http://47hats.com). I also comoderate Joel Spolsky's Business of Software forum (http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz).

My day job is consulting with startups and microISVs on how to increase their sales by better explaining their software on their web sites. But my real job since 2007 has been to recreate myself from a Windows desktop developer into a Rails web developer so that I can build and launch a superior way for startups to succeed: StartupToDo (http://startuptodo.com).

Before getting into all of the foregoing, I was a custom software developer for 20-plus years, and before that a reporter. I like what I'm doing now a lot more than either of those past careers!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Badly written with little useful content, September 13, 2009

By 

Tarun Upadhyay (VA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Web Startup Success Guide (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

This should be a couple of blog entries in a B+ blog, not a $20 book.

The book is not only badly written, it does not hardly any useful content either. Everything said here should be obvious to any person who has lived for any time near any web business. The author has unnecessarily made the book fat by having many long interviews with his friends - most of them add little to the content .

If you find this book useful - you should ask if you are the right person to run a business and perhaps spend sometime learning "basic business stuff" first.

Here is my recap of content:
* Chapter 1: Introduction: Funding a web startup today is easier than ever and many options exist including self-funding (duh!!)
* Chapter 2: Create value. There is no shortage of just "ideas" (duh, again !!)
* Chapter 3 & 4: There are lot of tools available to you like SaaS platforms, open source cms and local meetup groups (duh, duh ,duh !!)
* Chapter 5 is about raising money. It is filled with meaningless generalizations ("raising money is like falling in love") - none of them of much use.
* Chapter 6 is about social media. More generic stuff. Nothing said here is so remarkable that you cannot find it online - just google "how to market on social media" and just read the top 5 links. you will be WAY AHEAD of this book.
* Chapter 7 - The summary is - You need to be clear about what your USP is (duh !!)
* Chapter 8 - A long chapter on GTD methodology. There is no reason for it to be in this book. If GTD is your way, read a book on GTD.
* Chapter 9 - a needlessly long chapter about author's recommendation of 6 blogs to read.

Throw this book in fireplace - that will be more useful.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ads for various online tools, November 1, 2009

By 

Anton (Kyiv, Ukraine) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Web Startup Success Guide (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

I bought this book based on excellent reviews in hope that it would help me to know what and how to do to start my own web business. But "Web Startup Success Guide" turned out to be just a list of general and obvious recommendations with a vast amount of ads of various on-line tools, including author's own "Startup To-Do".

No real help, too long to be read in a spare time, typographic quality is too low. I'm deeply disappointed with this book.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars yet another book from someone who's supposedly made it in business writing about how you can make it in business, June 1, 2010

By 

The Agnostic Sheep - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Web Startup Success Guide (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

Where do I start. It seems like the authors claim to fame is that he has a successful small business teaching other small business's how to be successful. Did I miss something here? 90% of the book is just ads/informercials for companies which I assumed paid the author some money to appear in his book. Think of this book like a yellow pages for starting up your own company. The only difference is that the yellow pages is free. Everything in this book can be found just by googling.