Lost and Founder

Oct 9, 2024 9:18 AM

Author:Rand Fishkin

Lost and Founder

'You won't find a more honest, raw and helpful look into the trenches of founding a tech startup than this book' Nir Eyal, author of Hooked

'Rand Fishkin is the real deal' Seth Godin, entrepreneur and author

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Everyone knows how a startup story is supposed to go: a young, brilliant entrepreneur has an cool idea, drops out of college, defies the doubters, overcomes all odds, makes billions and becomes the envy of the technology world.

This is not that story.

Rand Fishkin, the founder and former CEO of Moz, is one of the world's leading experts on SEO. Moz is now a $45 million a year business, but Fishkin's business and reputation took 15 years to grow, and his startup began not in a Harvard dorm room but as a mother-and-son family business that fell deeply into debt.

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. For instance: a minimally viable product can be destructive if you launch at the wrong moment. Growth hacking may be the buzzword du jour, but initiatives to your business can fizzle quickly. Revenue and profitability won't protect you from layoffs. And venture capital always comes with strings attached.

In Lost and Founder Fishkin reveals the mostly awful, sometimes awesome truth about startup culturewith the transparency and humour that his hundreds of thousands of blog readers have come to love. Fishkin's hard-won lessons are applicable to any kind of business environment and this book can help solve your problems, and make you feel less alone for having them.

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'This is a truly courageous book. It's one part business-building guide and two parts Indiana Jones-style adventure memoir' Chris Guillebeau, author of Side Hustle and The $100 Startup

'Rand Fishkin is like the industry friend we all wish we had - funny, warm, and refreshingly honest about the rollercoaster ride that is founding your own company' Julie Zhou, VP of Product Design at Facebook

Reviews

After a productive morning in which I accomplish my big things, the rest of the day can be played by ear. It's all extra from there

—— RYAN HOLIDAY , author of The Obstacle Is the Way

A big part of my morning routine is about what I don't do: when I wake up, I don't start the day by looking at my phone

—— ARIANNA HUFFINGTON , founder of the Huffington Post and Thrive Global

The quiet time between 6:00 and 7:30 A.M. is when some of my best work gets done. It's my time to read, think, and prepare for the day ahead

—— BILL McNABB , chairman of the Vanguard Group

If I don't get a chance to play with my son in the morning I feel like I missed something that I'll never get back

—— BIZ STONE , cofounder of Twitter

I travel a lot for work, so my days are always different. Having a morning routine really means tting things in around everything else

—— CAMERON RUSSELL , fashion model and cultural activist

Find certain things you know you should do, don't like to do, or make excuses to avoid, and then do them every day

—— STANLEY McCHRYSTAL , retired U.S. Army four-star general

Imagine It Forward is like having a coach on your shelf to help you lead forward. Beth shares her lessons on summoning candor, courage and action to make meaningful change happen in any organization.

—— Kim Scott, New York Times Bestselling Author, RADICAL CANDOR

Imagine It Forward offers an experienced look at how nonlinear, ever evolving change saved one of America’s oldest, most traditional companies and brought it into the digital, socially conscious, irreverent era we now live in. Beth Comstock’s account of her unconventional career at a very conventional corporation, General Electric, is frank, funny and spot on about the need to abandon the top-down methods of the past in favour of greater collaboration, disruption and prioritizing the needs and wants of customers and consumers over profit

—— -Joichi Ito, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and director of the MIT Media Lab

Beth Comstock has a track record of innovating, leading, and being an agent of change. In Imagine It Forward, she proposes thought provoking ways to envision your future and build strategy around it

—— Sophia Amoruso, founder and New York Times bestselling author of #GIRLBOSS

Imagine It Forward offers good examples of teaching bravery not perfection -- in education and work. Beth offers valuable lessons that should help readers challenge themselves to risk more in pursuit of a better future for themselves and their organizations

—— Reshma Saujani, Founder & CEO, Girls Who Code

Ultra-timely...perfect for our fake news era

—— Inc.

With the phrase ‘fake news' dominating the conversation in 2017, Hector Macdonald's Truth feels like timely reading. Drawing from examples including the infamous Brexit bus and the way the Texas Department of State Health Services spread misinformation to pregnant women, the author asks whether it is ever morally acceptable for marketers to lie? It also looks at how consumers can protect themselves from misleading truths.

—— Marketing Week - Recommended Reading

Illuminating, judicious and lucid ... It will surely change the way you read the news and see the world.

—— Patrick West , Catholic Herald

An essential read... incisive drilling into the culture of an ambitious, successful but also flawed company.

—— Car Magazine

Be More Pirate is a call to our better natures, our more inventive, imaginative selves to rouse up and remake the world. It's time for the rebels in us all to re-emerge

—— Antony Mayfield , Founder and CEO of Brilliant Noise

A much needed call for more radical intention at the top. Be More Pirate is more useful, memorable and amusing than most leadership material I've seen, and I've pretty much seen the lot

—— Liam Black , CEO Wavelength

Be More Pirate provides high-octane inspiration in the face of unprecedented disruption. Break open the rum and immerse yourself, because Be More Pirate is a holistic strategy for success in changing times

—— Sherilyn Shackell , Founder & CEO The Marketing Academy

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