Guy Kawasaki - Reality check: the irreverent guide to outsmarting, outmanaging, and outmarketing your competition

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Table of Contents

ALSO BY GUY KAWASAKI

The Art of the Start

Rules for Revolutionaries

The Macintosh Way

Selling the Dream

How to Drive Your Competition Crazy

Hindsights

The Computer Curmudgeon

Database 101

PORTFOLIO

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East,
Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
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(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
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Panchsheel Park, New Dehli - 110 017, India
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in 2008 by Portfolio,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright Guy Kawasaki, 2008

All rights reserved
Portions of this book first appeared in the authors blog.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Kawasaki, Guy, 1954
Reality check : the irreverent guide to outsmarting, outmanaging,
and outmarketing your competition / Guy Kawasaki.
p. cm.
Includes index.

eISBN : 978-1-591-84223-1

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

http://us.penguingroup.com

To my four startups:
Nate, Nohemi, Noah, and Nic.
You four check me every day of my life.

FOREWORD 1.0

Imagine the American Dream on steroids and Red Bull and you have some idea of what life is like in Silicon Valley. Sure, Frank Sinatra called New York the city that never sleeps, but thats only because Frank never visited the Valley. This strip of land stretching from San Francisco to San Jose is another place where nobody ever seems to sleep. You know why? Because everybody is up all night working. And hoping. And dreaming.

Yes, theres the money. But theres something else, something much more powerful and seductive. Theres the chance to change the world. The chance to catch a wave just as its building and go for that once-in-a-lifetime ride. Ever wonder why these people whove already struck it rich on one tech company always go back and try to do it again? They cant help themselves. Its too much fun. And if they fail, who cares? Now think about that. Where else in the world can you fail at somethingand I mean utterly failand still get another chance? And another one after that?

The Valley is a place like no other place on earth. Its the last true meritocracy in America, a place where a great idea and a willingness to work ridiculously hard can turn a bunch of unknown kids into a bunch of billionaires. This isnt Wall Street, or Washington, D.C., or Hollywood, where success depends largely on which people you know and what college you went to. The Valley doesnt care where you went to college or even if you didnt go to college at all. The Valley is simply about ideas. Think youve got a good one? Code it up and give it a shot.

If youre reading this book chances are youve been bitten by that bug and youre dreaming of making it as an entrepreneur. Theres a lot youll need to learn. How to raise money. How to build a team. How to sell. How to schmooze. How to make presentations. How to influence people and make them believe in you. There is no better guide to the Valley than Guy Kawasaki, the legendary evangelist and venture capitalist who seems to know everyone out here. To put it another wayhes the guy who marketed the original Macintosh, back in 1984. Have you heard of it?

Maybe youve dreamed of meeting a mentor, a wise Valley veteran who would take you under his wing and share his insiders knowledge of how the Valley works. Well, now youve found one. My advice to the aspiring entrepreneur goes like this: Read this book. Study it. Listen to Guy. Take his advice. Then put down the book and get to work! Theres no time to waste. Theres already another guy in the Valley chasing the same thing you are. Maybe more than one. Whoever gets it right, and gets it first, wins. Oh, and theres probably some luck involved, too.

Good Luck.

DANIEL LYONS, aka FAKE STEVE JOBS
June 2008

FOREWORD 2.0

What follows is the best foreword in the history of business books. It came about because shortly after Dan wrote the first foreword, he announced that he was discontinuing Fake Steve Jobs. I begged him to write one last piece as Fake Steve Jobswhat an honor that would be for my book! Fortunately, he agreed, and so Reality Check has not one but two forewords.

You know what I think about whenever I hear the name Guy Kawasaki? Motorcycles. Its true. Its the first thing I think about when I hear his name, even though Ive been told again and again that Guy actually has nothing to do with motorcycles. So then I try not to think about motorcycles, but come on, the dudes name is Kawasaki. What else are you going to think about? And dont say Vietnam because hes a VC because that is not cool, people. Not cool at all. Guy was just a friggin kid when all that shit was going down.

Anyway, since Guy is not a motorcycle designer, and also no longer a member of the Viet Cong, I try to think about something else, and usually what I think about is the fact that he worked for me at Apple back in the eighties. To be honest, he didnt make much of an impression on me back in those days, and I didnt really remember anything about him, but I asked HR to pull his records and apparently the only notes we have on him are that he had a habit of cutting the line in the cafeteria and that a lot of people did not like him.

Anyway, Guy worked here for about fifteen minutes, but hes been dining out on that for the past twenty years, and whatever, more power to him. His big claim to fame is that he created this notion of technology evangelism and he created this huge community of weirdo Apple fanboys who would camp out overnight to get our products and who would attack anyone who dared to criticize Apple. To this day these freako Apple kooks still worship me like a god and never let me have a moment of peace or privacy. They steal license plates from my car. Some even show up outside my house hoping to catch a glimpse of me as I drive through the gate. Basically, theyve made my life a living hell.

So, um, thanks, Guy Kawasaki. Thanks a friggin million for that. Great job. I mean it. You dick.

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