about THe Book

The seed for this book came from a short speech “Tao of Startups” I gave to an audience of entrepreneurs and investors on March 23, 2018 at the China Accelerator 8x8 Event in Beijing.  The purpose of the talk was to take the audience through the entire “cycle” of creating a startup and discuss what is important (and what is not important) during each phase. Doing a startup is difficult and can be extremely stressful.  It can also be extremely fulfilling. I wanted to lead the audience through a “guided meditation” of sorts to put them in the proper frame of mind for doing a startup—to look at the process from a holistic point of view. This speech resonated with so many people, I was inspired to expand it into a book.

Through 15 years of doing startups, I have been involved in all aspects of doing them. Not only in the US but also in China and Japan. Through mentoring hundreds of entrepreneurs I have learned that the issues founders face are very universal in nature and for the most part can be boiled down to the 10 categories that are covered in this book. While there are lots of business books and books on startups, this book is meant to be the common sense guid that I wish I had when I was starting my companies. Each chapter has been shaped from numerous workshops on that specific topic that I have held across the globe with entrepreneurs. I trust you will find the book extremely useful in your startup journey.