Guy Kawasaki has become somewhat of a poster-child for today’s modern digital entrepreneur, a long-time Mac evangelist, highly demanded speaker, author, and currently managing director of Garage Technology Ventures but his success is well-deserved and his seminal work The Art of the Start is not only an enjoyable read but a very powerful tool for anyone looking to launch a business, organization, or music enterprise.

The concepts presented in The Art of the Start are concise, relevant, and extolled with Kawasaki’s trademark optimism and irreverence. The book as a whole is a valuable tool not only for its higher conceptual matter but also as a very concrete hands-on reference for many aspects of launching a new business including a must-have guide to Presenting and Pitching that is useful for just about any type of public speaking experience.

Check out our overview of the book as well as the basic concepts covered in the first three chapters:

Chapter 1 – The Art of Starting

In this chapter, Kawasaki outlines some basic principles for starting a venture as well a checklist of things that are essential to the ultimate viability of a concept. He has broken down the starting blocks into five basic rules:

1. Make Meaning – essentially, ensure that (and how) your product or service will make the world a better place

2. Make Mantra – Kawasaki loves mantras, more concise and vastly more memorable than mission statements, these should drive your daily actions (the author himself explains this here)

3. Get Going – get out there and start implementing, don’t spend too much time painstakingly crafting your business plan, instead start delivering your product or service and use what you observe to inform and update your strategy, business plan, mission; do both concurrently not sequentially

4. Define Your Business Model – figure out how you’re going to make money, no matter how great your idea is you have to be able to monetize it in a sustainable manner

5. Weave a Mat (Milestones, Assumptions, Tasks) – how are you going to measure and track success? Kawasaki suggests identifying: major milestones; assumptions that are inherent to the success of your particular business model; and the tasks that need to be completed to create an organization

Chapter 2 – The Art of Positioning

In this chapter, Kawasaki explains the importance of Positioning as the “heart and soul” of your company. This is how your potential customers (as well as potential employees) will perceive your company, and your ultimate success will depend upon their ability to relate to your brand.

In order to accomplish effective Positioning, you must be able to effectively communicate through your interactions with the public:

-Why the founders started the organization

-Why customers should patronize it

-Why good people should work at it

Kawasaki emphasizes the importance of “Seizing the High Ground” in Positioning which is something that was chronically ignored in the legacy tradition of marketing in which companies focused too heavily upon positioning themselves relative to their competition rather than presenting a customer-centric value proposition. Good Positioning implements the following:

• It is Positive: your purpose is not to put the competition out of business
• It is Customer-Centric: what you do for your customers, not what you want to do (don’t describe yourself as “the leading company” in your field, it only puts you in a largely abstract position relative to your competition and ignores your customers)
• It is Empowering: your employees must believe that they are making the world a better place
• It is Self-Explanatory: (further explanation here would be redundant)
• It is Specific: if you are the intended customer you understand this and vice versa
• It is Core: core competencies are the basis of competition
• It is Relevant: core competencies should match core needs of customers
• It is Long-Lasting: aim for positioning that will last 100 years
• It is Differentiated: your positioning should not sound like your competitors but must not act  as though there is no competition

Chapter 3 – The Art of Pitching

This is arguably the most useful chapter in the book and one of the primary reasons that it is worth purchasing. Kawasaki presents a concise step-by-step and very well-reasoned guide to pitching your company to potential investors. This is the most immediately implementable and concrete section of the book and deserves to be considered in greater depth than it will receive here.

In order to develop an effective and efficient pitch the following must take place:

• Always Be Pitching: practice makes perfect
• Explain Yourself in the First Minute: answer the question of what your company does in the first minute, do not start with biographical information (consequently this relates to a concept from Made to Stick which will be reviewed at a later date: that if you say more than 3 things, you say nothing at all)
• Answer The Little Man: constantly answer the “little man on your shoulder” who says “so what?” after every point you make; combine an answer to “so what?” with “for instance…” and provide specific examples
• Know Your Audience: do research beforehand; learn what they are looking to do in the future; connect what you do to their plans

And here, the most important piece of the entire chapter…

• OBSERVE THE 10/20/30 RULE!

1. 10 Slides
2. 20 Minutes
3. 30 Pt Font

The 10/20/30 Rule is a beautiful thing and the world would be a better place if more people observed it. It is a very simple guideline to enforcing conciseness and precision of information in Powerpoint Presentations. One would be hard pressed to find anyone who had never at some point in their life sat through the drudgery and tedium of a terribly formatted eyesore of a never-ending Powerpoint presentation. You can certainly expect potential investors to have suffered through more than their fair share of these. It is for this reason that well-executed Presentations provide a welcome breath of fresh air and curry that much more favor with regard to your Pitch. Kawasaki proceeds to explain the details of a good presentation in further depth but this rule is at the core of all of it.

The Art of the Start provides a great reference to anyone in the process of planning and launching a new venture and we highly recommend purchasing it and going over it at great length. I find that since reading it, it is rarely at more than arm’s length from me when writing a Business or Marketing Plan or when designing a Presentation or Pitch. I have every chapter outlined with key information bulleted which I consult on a regular basis.

Best of luck. We look forward to your comments.

-Patrick R           

patrick@rabbitholeconsulting.com

Interested in how to implement Business Development Strategy and Intelligent Marketing Concepts for your Music Enterprise or small business? Contact RabbitHole Consulting to learn about how we can help you reach your target.