Art of the Start

  • The Art of Starting

    Make meaning

    • Ask women

    • Get going

    • The Art of Positioning

    Seize the high ground

    • Make it personal

    • Niche thyself

    • The Art of Pitching

    Explain in the first minute

    • Answer the little man

    • 10 slides

    Title

    • Problem

    • Solution

    • Business model

    • Underlying magic

    • Marketing and sales

    • Competition

    • Team

    • Projections

    • Status and timeline

    • 20 minutes

    • 30 point font

    • The Art of Writing a Business Plan

    Pitch then plan

    • Focus on the executive summary

    • Write deliberate, act emergent

    • The Art of Raising Capital

    Build a real business

    • Get an intro

    • Clean up your act

    • The Art of Bootstrapping

    Manage for cash flow, not profitability

    • Build a bottom-up forecast

    • Focus on function, not form

    • The Art of Recruiting

    Hire infected people

    • Double check your gut

    • Apply the shopping center test

    • The Art of Partnering

    Partner for “spreadsheet” reasons

    • Ensure that middles and bottoms like the deal

    • Cut win-win deals

    • The Art of Branding

    Create a contagion

    • Lower the barriers to adoption

    • Foster a community

    • The Art of Rainmaking

    Let a hundred flowers blossom

    • Suck down

    • Go after agnostics

    • The Art of Being a Mensch

    Help a lot of people

    • Do what’s right

    • Pay back society

Summary of Art of the Start, by Guy Kawasaki