Reviews for Founders at Work : Stories of Startups' Early Days: Stories of Startups' Early Days (Recipes: a Problem-Solution Ap)

1. Enlightening

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2009

   Very good choice of subjects for the interviews, some really amazing personalities from the IT world, shown as they are.
   A very competent interviewer, able to ask the right questions, without ever getting in the way of the answers, always detailed and complete.
   Fresh, never boring, a really inspirational book for whoever has ever thought of starting a company of his own, a very interesting read for anyone.

2. Detailed, repetitive, more business than business activities

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2009

   This books gives a detailed account from individuals involved in some top Tech companies. Describing what they went through turning their idea into a business. Although since a lot of the companies went through very similar stages the interviews can be a bit repetitive.
   
   If you want to know all about the goings on of the companies and their 'products' then this isn't for you, it focuses on the business side of setting up the company, or more precisely their struggles in the business side of things.
   
   
   
   Overall a very enjoyable informative read. Maybe not for everyone though.

3. Enjoyable story, interesting observations, tangible results

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2008

   I enjoyed this tale of ideas, optimism, challenge, toil and learning. The originating premise of the book was to track a great code project from inception to market, but turned into a slightly embarrassed fly-on-the-way tale of a software team lost in the woods. The book is informative, well written and deals with the topic with clarity and insight. The pace slows towards the end, but this feels more of a reflection of the project. It also has the virtue that the project is still ongoing (and the latest build available for download), and its passage is well documented on the web. This gives a rare opportunity to see how the design decisions and characters in a project contribute to an end product. I would have given 4 stars for the book, but the ability to look at the ongoing project with the back story is worth 5.

4. True inspiring entrepreneurs stories

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, January 12nd, 2008

   Many authors have written "how to" styled books on start ups - always a pain because there is so much bias in their 'theory'. This is MUCH better: learn from real life stories of successful people!
   
   +++ What I love most about it: it's a no b*s* book where you can learn from the interviews of some of the most famous entrepreneurs of the 90s (at Apple, Adobe, Flikr, Craiglist, Hotmail...). The stories are just so inspiring when the real people tell them and what a collection!
   --- What I like least: it's only about software/tech companies hence some learnings will not apply to other industries. This is not the core of the books through so it's a really minor criticism.
   
   Overall, extremely inspiring book. I recommend it to all would-be entrepreneurs or simply to those curious about how these famous companies got started!

5. Pure motivation

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2007

   This book is just pure motivation with an all-star cast. Especially memorable are the stories about Hot or Not and Tickle. Sometimes a good idea is all that is needed. Then there are the other types of stories, where success came from engineering ingenuity, like the story of Adobe. I have read around a dozen books about dot com success stories, and this one was definitely the best. If you need more reasons to get it, consider it has both Paul Graham AND Joel Spolsky sharing their experiences in the same book!