Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World

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Those who can't compete without a broad product line will disagree, however he makes his case for his business story well. Now Fishkin pulls back the curtain on tech startup mythology, exposing the ups and downs of startup life that most CEOs would rather keep secret. When Rand’s not working, he’s most likely to be in the company of his partner in marriage and (mostly petty) crime, author Geraldine DeRuiter. They then became the first to develop a tool to show who linked to whom on the internet by building a web index 'to rival Google', despite experts telling them this couldn't be done with their resources. He suggests to think really hard before making that big pivot, perhaps trying pivots IN EXECUTION first in some cases before pivoting entirely.

If a member of your team isn’t performing well, try to find a solution like additional mentoring rather than ignoring the issue. Honest, funny and more down to earth and closer to what an average successful start-up journey looks like - his company is a very successful business, but it's not Facebook or Google.

but Rand can be very proud of what he's stood for, often against what others more purely business-focused would likely advise against. Most people don't want to talk about those startup stories, but the truth is, they're a lot more common than the Zuckerberg-esque tales of success we so often hear about. The author’s startup Moz was founded in 2004 and experienced a huge number of ups and downs until it finally found its groove in 2017. Sharing the ups, and more importantly, the downs of the startup world, Rand lays it all out for his readers in stunning clarity. A very small percentage of businesses have been built on the back of the chaotic, messy formula, but a thousandfold more have catapulted into nothingness.

With no intention to start my own business anytime soon, I still enjoyed myself a lot reading the book. As a big fan of Rand's work on Moz (especially his pro tips on Twitter and Whiteboard Friday's), this book was a great look behind the curtain on the true nature of running a venture backed SaaS business.

In this book, he shares the true story of how he successfully started Moz and then at some point failed with its growth, why he recently left the company, and what he learnt during these 16 years. Rand does a great job of providing a balanced view of the advantages and disadvantages of taking VC money and forces you to think differently and consider other options. We are facing many of the same pitfalls that Rand faced, and were heading towards some of the same mistakes before I picked this book up.

In the end he states that the "not so much fun times" happened much more often, which is something I can relate to. A startup’s board has access to aggregate salary statistics and won’t hesitate to cap the salaries of senior staff. Many companies raise excess capital before they have PMF, the book clearly demonstrates what happens because of that. Fishkin pulls back the curtain on tech startup mythology, exposing the ups and downs of startup life and sharing his hard-won lessons with you. His honest account destroy many of the start up myths that perhaps cause many start ups to fail in the first place.Very well told and candid, and they touch topics that are not often visited in tech/business/startup literature. Came at an opportune time for me while I was navigating and making important choices from my own startup.

Highly recommended for anyone building a company who wants to learn from the wisdom of someone who came before them.The book highlights the softer parts of running a tech startup - parts that are usually ignored as they fall behind more urgent tasks. The main reason I'm not giving this a higher rating is I found Rand's attitude a bit obnoxious and not truthful to his own values. My favourite chapter was the one where Rand talks about focus - a really undervalued skill of a founder. He talks about the strengths and weaknesses of different investor categories (VC, speciality VC's, angel, debt, equity crowdfunding, debt crowd funding, etc.