Zero Gravity: Riding Venture Capital from High-Tech Start-up to Breakout IPO [Hardcover]

Steve Harmon (Author), John Doerr (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

The Internet...it's a wild ride. High-flying Internet companies seem to operate their own set of rules -- outside the natural laws of gravity that apply to most businesses. It's an environment in which perception is more important than profits, and "mind share" is greater than market share. This is Zero Gravity, and it's what all Internet start-ups aspire to.

But how do garage entrepreneurs and Internet junkies make the transition from that first caffeine-induced idea to blockbuster IPO and instant-millionaire status? The answer is venture capital -- which has funded nearly every successful start-up.

This book by noted Internet stock analyst Steve Harmon provides an insider's edge and a savvy look inside the topsy-turvy culture of venture capital and Silicon Valley start-ups. It delivers valuable guidelines from top venture capitalists, such as John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad, and Esther Dyson of EDVenture Holdings -- the leaders who make the rules in cyberspace.

Zero Gravity also contains advice and lively anecdotes on business growth and Internet company etiquette from luminaries such as Jerry Yang of Yahoo! and Jeffrey Bezos of AMAZON.com. It provides the contacts you need, in tandem with the know-how it takes to operate successfully in the frenetic, high-stakes world of Internet business. This is "the little black book" for anyone interested in what's really going on in this news-making industry.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the world of venture capital, investors look for deals that will return 10 to 20 times their original investment, although sometimes they do much, much better. Venture capitalists are looking for many things: not only a company that can dominate a business category, but one that will eventually be worth at least a half-billion dollars. And even if an entrepreneur can present a business plan that looks as if it can deliver a company of that size and prominence, the VC has to have confidence in that businessperson before time and money get invested in the startup.

That's a lot to expect from a new business, but there's more. According to Steve Harmon, an entrepreneur has few chances to get a VC's attention, so first impressions might mean the difference between millions invested and complete rejection. Harmon is an Internet-investment analyst who knows the VC world well, and Zero Gravity is his guide for people with new ideas: which VCs to approach (different firms specialize in different types of business startups, and each partner within those firms may have his or her own areas of specialization), how to approach them and get them excited about your idea, and what mistakes to avoid (hint: If you've already granted a chunk of the company to your doctor and your accountant in exchange for dribs and drabs of prestartup money, VC interest will be minimal).

This is about as complete a manual as an entry-level entrepreneur could hope for. Harmon not only covers the basics of searching for capital, he offers inspirational stories of the true VC successes (Amazon.com, Netscape, @Home) and includes interviews with the VCs themselves, letting them say in their own words how they pick the winners, and how you can become one of them. --Lou Schuler

Review

I wish this book had been around when I co-founded Netscape. Steve Harmon's book provides key insights on the new environment for creating businesses in the Internet era. A must-read for any entrepreneur looking at the Internet opportunity. -- Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape

Steve has always been at the heart of the net economy. With Zero Gravity he takes that experience and packages it into a "how-to guide" that no entrepreneur should be without. -- Bob Davis, President and CEO, Lycos, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576600327
• ISBN-13: 978-1576600320
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,048,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A few helpful tidbits, not much else, January 4, 2000

By 

Dirk Puslich - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zero Gravity: Riding Venture Capital from High-Tech Start-up to Breakout IPO (Hardcover)

I originally bought this book because John Doerr was a "co-author". He only wrote the foreward, a few hundred words at most.

Most of the book is filler and anecdotal examples, like "a good vc is important, just look at Netscape..."

The valuation section does does not really even talk about methodology, but gives a list of deals from the VentureOne database.

About a quarter of the book is a venture capital directory. This will be moderately useful but there are plenty available on the web.

The only real value I got out of the book is the interviews with some good VCs.

This book had a lot of potential, but the value could be condensed into ten pages. I was disappointed in that I expected much more.

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hastily put together, February 6, 2000

By 

O. Mahoney (Redwood City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zero Gravity: Riding Venture Capital from High-Tech Start-up to Breakout IPO (Hardcover)

This book read like it was put together in a weekend. The writer seemed peculiarly interested in promoting himself, rather than the ideas he was explaining. Lots of hype (anecdotes about quick success, making a splash, etc). Very little on the mechanics of raising money, negotiating with VC's, haggling over valuation...ie, the stuff that you really need to know as an entrepreneur. Overall, a low signal-to-noise ratio.

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Major UnderPerformer, December 6, 1999

By 

John Smoltz (San Mateo) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zero Gravity: Riding Venture Capital from High-Tech Start-up to Breakout IPO (Hardcover)

I had high hopes for this book given my favorable view of Harmon's analysis when he worked at Internet.com.

However, this book is a major disappointment and appears to be nothing more than a PR ploy. Let's forget about the typos and repetitive charts and tables and focus on the the superficial nature of the information. This is not even close to the "inside" story it professes to be and is, in fact, less comprehensive than what can be found by piecing together a variety of articles from Fortune, Upside, and Red Herring.

Harmon seems to be more concerned with tooting his own horn now that he is out on his own than in providing some value to readers who have an interest in this subject matter. Give me a break, tips on how to dress from him?

I have noticed that he now begins any interview with words like "I noticed CMGI when it was at $2 a share" in order to remind us of his prowess.

Because he has made a few good calls, are we to accept that he has instant credibility with respect to an area such as VC funding?

Now Harmon has become a venture capitalist and it appears that this book is designed to give him more credibility in this area because it is "co-written" by John Doerr and has all of the usual high profile names mentioned in it.

I for one am not buying into it. There's nothing new here. The fact that someone identified several good internet stocks a few years ago does not give them credibility in this subject matter. It has to be earned and this book is a poor effort at doing so.