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Start Small, Stay Small

A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

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Start Small, Stay Small

By: Rob Walling
Narrated by: Rob Walling
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About this listen

Start Small, Stay Small is a step-by-step guide to launching a self-funded start-up. If you're a desktop, mobile, or web developer, this audiobook is your blueprint to getting your start-up off the ground with no outside investment. This audiobook intentionally avoids topics restricted to venture-backed start-ups such as: honing your investment pitch, securing funding, and figuring out how to use the piles of cash investors keep placing in your lap.

This audiobook assumes:

  • You don't have six million dollars of investor funds sitting in your bank account
  • You're not going to relocate to the handful of start-up hubs in the world
  • You're not going to work 70-hour weeks for low pay with the hope of someday making millions from stock options

There's nothing wrong with pursuing venture funding and attempting to grow fast like Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Facebook. It just so happens that most people are not in a place to do this. Start Small, Stay Small also focuses on the single most important element of a start-up that most developers avoid: marketing. There are many great resources for learning how to write code, organize source control, or connect to a database. This audiobook does not cover the technical aspects developers already know or can learn elsewhere. It focuses on finding your idea, testing it before you build, and getting it into the hands of your customers.

©2010 Robert Walling (P)2010 Robert Walling
Career Success Entrepreneurship New Business Enterprises Small Business Software Development Employment Career Software Business Project Management Software Business
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Old but still worth it

While lots of the figures are outdated they show how things have changed in 2023 such as valuations. The techniques discussed are still completely valid

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A bit outdated, but very inspiring

Most of the links and ideas are outdated, but still, there's a lot of relevant knowledge here if you don't know where to start to build your first startup business. Rob's reading is also great, his voice reminds me a bit of Jeffrey Way's :) I would love to have an updated version of this book, but I don't think that will ever happen. But as I said it's still worth the attention and must be part of your library of business books.

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Excellent book but outdated

The author claims this book is full of practical information without padded content. I would support they claim and the information density feels indeed very high.

The content itself is really good and useful and did deliver on the title, many things were discussed which I did not think about but have now adopted (in particular on market research). However, the information feels at times dated and most links (at least the ones I tried) seemed to be non existing anymore. The author refers to MySpace and magazine advertisements which feels out of touch for today's market. The tool the author uses for market research does not exist anymore (?!) so it was somewhat difficult to find something similar but I did eventually and I feel I'm making a much better informed decision about my potential markets now.

Overall, I would still recommend it, seo tools have moved on and changed, but there is a wealth of information that you will not find elsewhere, and there are really good ballpark estimates which will help check if a software project is viable or not.

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Great insight but a bit old

This book gives great insight into how rob thinks about building products and his process for launching and maintaining them. I didn’t realise this book was originally published in 2010 as the audiobook was published in 2018 it’s a bit outdated and could use and updated version, Rob?

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Great guide, if a bit dated

The book is incredibly dense in useful information. Rob mentions a ton of resources and cites hourly wage ranges from back when the book was authored - that part is partially outdated, but does not take away from the core message. I wish he'd release a second updated edition!

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1 person found this helpful