Paul Graham: The Art of Funding a Startup (A Mixergy Interview)


Book Description

FROM ANDREW WARNER: I first interviewed Paul Graham after I heard something shocking from Alexis Ohanian, a founder whose company was funded by Graham's Y Combinator. Alexis came to Mixergy to tell the story of how he launched and sold Reddit. If you're a founder, you know the kind of problems that founders have, right? Figuring out what product to create, how to build it, how to get users to try it, etc. Well Alexis didn't seem to have those problems, or at least they weren't as challenging for him as they were for most of the other 600 entrepreneurs I interviewed on Mixergy. Why? Because Paul Graham helped him launch his business. How did Graham make Reddit's launch easier and more successful than other companies' founding? How did he do the same for hundreds of other startups? And, more importantly, what can you learn from his experiences to grow your business? The book you're holding has those answers. Use what you're about to learn to build your successful startup. After you do, I hope you'll let me interview you so other founders can learn from your experience, the way you're about to benefit from Graham's.




Start Small, Stay Small


Book Description

Start Small, Stay Small is a step-by-step guide to launching a self-funded startup. If you're a desktop, mobile or web developer, this book is your blueprint to getting your startup off the ground with no outside investment.This book intentionally avoids topics restricted to venture-backed startups 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 book assumes: You don't have $6M of investor funds sitting in your bank account You're not going to relocate to the handful of startup 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 happened 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 startup 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 book 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.




Digital Economies at Global Margins


Book Description

Investigations of what increasing digital connectivity and the digitalization of the economy mean for people and places at the world's economic margins. Within the last decade, more than one billion people became new Internet users. Once, digital connectivity was confined to economically prosperous parts of the world; now Internet users make up a majority of the world's population. In this book, contributors from a range of disciplines and locations investigate the impact of increased digital connectivity on people and places at the world's economic margins. Does the advent of a digitalized economy mean that those in economic peripheries can transcend spatial, organizational, social, and political constraints—or do digital tools and techniques tend to reinforce existing inequalities? The contributors present a diverse set of case studies, reporting on digitalization in countries ranging from Chile to Kenya to the Philippines, and develop a broad range of theoretical positions. They consider, among other things, data-driven disintermediation, women's economic empowerment and gendered power relations, digital humanitarianism and philanthropic capitalism, the spread of innovation hubs, and two cases of the reversal of core and periphery in digital innovation. Contributors Niels Beerepoot, Ryan Burns, Jenna Burrell, Julie Yujie Chen, Peter Dannenberg, Uwe Deichmann, Jonathan Donner, Christopher Foster, Mark Graham, Nicolas Friederici, Hernan Galperin, Catrihel Greppi, Anita Gurumurthy, Isis Hjorth, Lilly Irani, Molly Jackman, Calestous Juma, Dorothea Kleine, Madlen Krone, Vili Lehdonvirta, Chris Locke, Silvia Masiero, Hannah McCarrick,Deepak K. Mishra, Bitange Ndemo, Jorien Oprins, Elisa Oreglia, Stefan Ouma, Robert Pepper, Jack Linchuan Qiu, Julian Stenmanns, Tim Unwin, Julia Verne, Timothy Waema




Capital Compounders


Book Description

FROM NATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR ROBIN R. SPEZIALE – LEARN HOW TO MAKE MONEY INVESTING IN GROWTH STOCKS In Capital Compounders, DIY Investor & National Bestselling Author Robin R. Speziale makes it easy for anyone to beat the market and make money investing in growth stocks! Robin R. Speziale shares his journey building a $300,000+ stock portfolio before 30 (and how you can too!) by investing in growth stocks or “Capital Compounders” – stocks that double, and then double again, and again on the market. Capital Compounder stocks have achieved the “tenbagger” ($1 turns into $10), and some even the “100-bagger” ($1 turns into $100) status. Mr. Speziale discusses the commonalities of today’s market-beating growth stocks so that you can find the next ones in the future. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THE BOOK: How you can turn $0 into $300,000 (and more) by saving, and then investing in growth stocksWhy growth investing is better than value investingWhat top growth stocks (“Capital Compounders”) have in common72 Rules for investing stocks; winning in the market, and managing a portfolioActual examples of tenbagger (10x return) and 100-bagger (100x return) stocks75+ events, and corporate developments that move stocksHow a hedge fund manager achieved a 24% compound annual return (since 1998!)50+ predictions for the futureExclusive interviews with a small-cap technology analyst, and a growth hedge fund managerHow to decode market psychology, and control your own behavioural biasesGrowth investing strategies from the world's top growth investorsDaily routine – how to stay on top of the stock market, and find new growth ideas100+ Free DIY investor resources (all of my favourites!)PLUS – FREE Investment Newsletter Subscription (inside the book) Capital Compounders is for both budding and seasoned investors. It’s entertaining (because finance can be dry), and includes lots of easy-to-learn tips and strategies on growth investing that you can apply in the stock market. Robin R. Speziale is a DIY Investor and Globe and Mail National Bestselling Author; Market Masters (2016). He's been investing in the stock market since 2005, and built a $300,000+ portfolio before 30. Mr. Speziale lives in Toronto, Ontario. Visit RobinRSpeziale.com and email Robin – [email protected].




7L: The Seven Levels of Communication


Book Description

Can you imagine receiving a referral each and every day? Neither could real estate agent Rick Masters. (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication tells the entertaining and educational story of Rick Masters, who is suffering from a down economy when he meets a mortgage professional who has built a successful business without advertising or personal promotion. Skeptical, he agrees to accompany her to a conference to learn more about her mysterious methods. Rick soon learns that the rewards for implementing these strategies are far greater than he had ever imagined. In seeking success, he finds significance. This heartwarming tale of Rick's trials and triumphs describes the exact strategies that helped him evolve from the Ego Era to the Generosity Generation. This book is about so much more than referrals. This is about building a business that not only feeds your family, but also feeds your soul.




The Stupidity Paradox


Book Description

Functional stupidity can be catastrophic. It can cause organisational collapse, financial meltdown and technical disaster. And there are countless, more everyday examples of organisations accepting the dubious, the absurd and the downright idiotic, from unsustainable management fads to the cult of leadership or an over-reliance on brand and image. And yet a dose of stupidity can be useful and produce good, short-term results: it can nurture harmony, encourage people to get on with the job and drive success. This is the stupidity paradox. The Stupidity Paradox tackles head-on the pros and cons of functional stupidity. You'll discover what makes a workplace mindless, why being stupid might be a good thing in the short term but a disaster in the longer term, and how to make your workplace a little less stupid by challenging thoughtless conformity. It shows how harmony and action in the workplace can be balanced with a culture of questioning and challenge. The book is a wake-up call for smart organisations and smarter people. It encourages us to use our intelligence fully for the sake of personal satisfaction, organisational success and the flourishing of society as a whole.




Random Walk Guide To Investing


Book Description

An introduction the the basics of investing presents ten rules designed to promote long-term financial success and security.




Find Your Fire


Book Description




The Hungry Scientist Handbook


Book Description

Inventive, (mostly) edible DIY gadgets and projects guaranteed to captivate The Hungry Scientist Handbook brings DIY technology into the kitchen and onto the plate. It compiles the most mouthwatering projects created by mechanical engineer Patrick Buckley and his band of intrepid techie friends, whose collaboration on contraptions started at a memorable 2005 Bay Area dinner party and resulted in the formation of the Hungry Scientist Society—a loose confederation of creative minds dedicated to the pursuit of projects possessing varying degrees of whimsy and utility. Featuring twenty projects ranging from edible origami to glowing lollipops, cryogenic martinis to Tupperware boom boxes, the book draws from the expertise of programmers, professors, and garden-variety geeks and offers something to delight DIYers of all skill levels.




The Accidental Investment Banker


Book Description

Jonathan A. Knee had a ringside seat during the go-go, boom-and-bust decade and into the 21st century, at the two most prestigious investment banks on Wall Street--Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. In this candid and irreverent insider's account of an industry in free fall, Knee captures an exhilarating era of fabulous deal-making in a free-wheeling Internet economy--and the catastrophe that followed when the bubble burst. Populated with power players, back stabbers, celebrity bankers, and godzillionaires, here is a vivid account of the dramatic upheaval that took place in investment banking. Indeed, Knee entered an industry that was typified by the motto "first-class business in a first-class way" and saw it transformed in a decade to a free-for-all typified by the acronym IBG, YBG ("I'll be gone, you'll be gone"). Increasingly mercenary bankers signed off on weak deals, knowing they would leave them in the rear-view mirror. Once, investment bankers prospered largely on their success in serving the client, preserving the firm, and protecting the public interest. Now, in the "financial supermarket" era, bankers felt not only that each day might be their last, but that their worth was tied exclusively to how much revenue they generated for the firm on that day--regardless of the source. Today, most young executives feel no loyalty to their firms, and among their clients, Knee finds an unprecedented but understandable level of cynicism and distrust of investment banks. Brimming with insight into what investment bankers actually do, and told with biting humor and unflinching honesty, The Accidental Investment Banker offers a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of the most powerful companies on Wall Street.