Diana Kander - All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything Is on the Line

DIANA KANDER

Cover Design: courtesy of the author

Copyright 2014 by Diana Kander. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Kander, Diana.

All in startup : launching a new idea when everything is on the line / Diana Kander.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-118-85766-3 (hardback)

1. Entrepreneurship. 2. New business enterprises. I. Title.

HB615.K355 2014

658.1'1dc23

2013050101

ISBN 9781118857663 (Hardcover)

ISBN 9781118857762 (ePDF)

ISBN 9781118857670 (ePub)

To my best friend, Jason.

Thanks for picking me for this crazy adventure every day.

A lot has happened in the field of evidence-based entrepreneurship since I first published the Four Steps to the Epiphany. In it, I first proposed that startups werent smaller versions of large companies, and that the traditional advice from investorswrite a business plan and execute the planwas wrong. The reality is that startups needed to search for a business model rather than execute a business plan.

Over the past decade, the concepts outlined in the book have grown into an international Lean Startup movement. The Lean Launchpad curriculum I teach at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Columbia University, and UCSF is now being taught at hundreds of universities; over 250,000 students have taken the online version of the course, and the National Science Foundation is using the course to commercialize science as part of the NSF Innovation Corps program.

Even large companies facing continuous disruption have begun to understand the need for continuous innovation and the value of getting out of the building and testing their assumptions.

Despite all the progress weve made, there remain hundreds of thousands of would-be entrepreneurs who have yet to learn the concepts of evidence-based entrepreneurship. Thats why this book is so important.

All In Startup makes lean concepts more accessible through a simple but powerful allegory to which readers will easily relate. Diana Kander helps readers understand the value of the lean approach by tying it to a memorable story.

While the other books in the evidence-based entrepreneurship field, such as The Startup Owners Manual, The Lean Startup, and Business Model Generation, explain the how to of this methodology, All In Startup explains the why. Go behind the scenes of a startup and understand why the protagonist, Owen Chase, struggles to get his concept off the ground by following a traditional approach of starting a business. Then see the value that a lean methodology can bring to his enterprise as he learns a faster, more efficient way to launch companies.

This is a must read for anyone interested in launching a new product or business.

Steve Blank

Stories are powerful teaching mechanisms because they engage more parts of our brain than traditional educational tools. When we read a textbook or attend a lecture, we use the language processing centers of our brain to translate words into meaning. But thats only a small portion of our brain. When we read a novel, our brains are firing on all cylinders. Our brains react to the story as if we were in the middle of the action, experiencing it ourselves, and our brains connect the material to our personal experiences.

This linkage of new knowledge to our own memory bank makes new information relatable and easier to retain. Thats why Im so excited about Diana Kanders use of a novel to teach modern entrepreneurship principles. Its just brilliant.

Entrepreneurial science has come a long way over the past 10 years. Weve learned a lot about how to significantly reduce the number of startup failures and yet we havent been able to properly communicate these lessons to the entrepreneurs that need them most. Until now.

All In Startup is the best explanation Ive seen of the entrepreneurial process behind turning ideas into profitable businesses. Diana masterfully uses fiction to illustrate important concepts aspiring entrepreneurs must master while providing her readers with a taste of the emotional roller coaster endured by those launching something completely new.

This compelling story lets the reader see entrepreneurship through the eyes of a first-time entrepreneur. How many of us wish that we had a do-over where we could utilize the valuable lessons learned from our first adventure? All In Startup gives readers a safe view into what happens when you launch your venture in the wrong way. It vividly demonstrates the challenges entrepreneurs must overcome both in their venture and in their personal lives to find success, and it gives us a common language to understand and communicate startup challenges.

This book offers anyone thinking about launching an idea a road map for significantly reducing the risks along the way. Dont daydream about your idea any longer. Stop wasting valuable time and money planning for someday. Read this book and start acting on that great idea.