Book Club (Austin)

Book Club Yahoo Group

Lead

• Phyllis Blees phyllis AT austin.rr.com
• 2006-2007 - Tom Brown tbbrown AT stuffopolis.com

Charter/Mission

To discuss bootstrap-related books amongst ourselves and with the authors and share the learning with Bootstrappers everywhere.

Upcoming Books

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/01n0KM1apBL._PIsitb-st-14_OU01_.jpg Thurs, June 28 Megatrends 2010 - The Rise of Conscious Capitalism

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/017A39W4TXL._PIsitb-st-arrow,TopRight,11,-14_OU01_.jpg Thurs, July 26 Rise of the Creative Class followed by a discussion at 3:00 p.m. Sunday, July 29 on ABD Talk Radio (1370AM)

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/01CDTV81GNL.jpg Thurs, September 13 Presence

Library

Bootstrap Library on Stuffopolis (join the bookclub with the code "bootstrap")

Subscribe to Bootstrap Library RSS Review Feed http://www.stuffopolis.com/wopr/images/xml_button.gif

Logistics

Book Club meets every 6 weeks or so and invitations are sent to the all bootstrap members via eVite. It's a potluck and we meet at a bootstrapper's house at 7pm. We precede the events with discussions and review of a book on the private Bootstrap Library group on Stuffopolis. All BookClub discussions are podcasted on the BootRap.

History

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1587990598.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg Saturday, January 14 Hoover's Vision

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060731141.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg Thursday, March 30 Go It Alone (podcast)

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0976057409.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg Thursday, May 11 The Human Fabric

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0812932293.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg Wednesday, July 19 Losing My Virginity

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1401302378.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg Thursday, September 14 The Long Tail

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0691017840.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_V1115281946_.jpg Thursday, November 30 The Hero With A Thousand Faces

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/1591841437.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_V39358835_.jpg Thursday, Jan 11 The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/1586481983.01._SCTHUMBZZZ_.jpg March 22 at 7:00 p.m Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty Muhammad Yunus

Suggestions - Add yours!

Ash Maurya

Surfing randomly this afternoon through the tech/business sections at the local bookstore, I stumbled across Seth Godin's latest book: The Dip, which I had to finish in one sitting. The cover describes the book as "a little book that teaches you when to quit (and when to stick)". According to the book, the dip exists in anything worth doing - Things typically start out exciting and fun, then get harder until hitting a low point really hard. He discusses how to identify the different types of dips, embracing the "good" ones and quitting the "bad" ones early. Yes, a lot of it will seem like common sense but Seth has a great talent for communicating simple ideas with impact. I thought it very relevant to bootstrapping especially for those in ideation and vod. VOD is essentially the dip all bootstrappers must push through to become the best... Hope you find it a good read too...

Ben Finklea

1. is a terrific book, and cheap, too. I got the audio version read by the author and have listened to it twice now. To sum it up: If you aren’t the best or don’t have the resources to become the best then you should probably quit and do something else. (Note: The best can be in your town, in your market, in your industry, or in the whole world. As long as your customers think you’re the best.) I’m butchering this. It’s only $5. Go read it! I love the first line: “Being the best in the world is seriously UNDERrated!”

Rick Friedman

1. Jane Jacobs, Systems of Survival

Robin Krieglstein

1. Chalice and Blade

Michael Strong

1. Hayek: The Creative Power of a Free Civilization
2. Emerson: Self Reliance

Tom Brown

1. One of my favorite books (easily in my top 20) is How to be Invisible. i've read it at least twice. the author has written a new e-book "skip college: go into business for yourself.
2. Crazy idea 148: Bookclub Idol. In henry jenkins' book convergence culture (chapter 2), he notes that since the idol contest is spread over several weeks, it gives people something to talk about with each other and become vested in. ROUND 1: like the format of bootstrap roundtable, participants bring a book they think would be good for a bootstrap discussion and each gets 5 minutes plus Q/A. Everyone is a judge. top 2 go to round 2 which will be at the next meeting (possibly virtual). ROUND 2: perhaps this round can be a virtual meeting with the 2 winners from the last round. we could use Elluminate, the 2 can make their presentations and people vote in real time. we take the winner's book for our next meeting. here's a very relevant example of Elluminate being used by nancy white:
3. My full review of convergence culture is here
4. My favorite amazon reviewer just reviewed this one. i've been meaning to get another VISA related book to complement: VISA: the power of an idea

Bijoy

1. Greg Gianforte's "Bootstrapping Your Business." Greg is a bootstrapper's account - he bootstrapped Right Now from 0-$100MM. He will be happy to call in and I can arrange that. It deals very directly with the VoD and is VERY affordable. Here's the website
2. Amar Bhide. Provides an academic's perspective. And we haven't had an academic's perspective yet, right? So that might be a vote for that one.

Bill Harrison

1. Another worthwhile presentation of the business need to continually adapt is The Entrepreneurial Mindset by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian MacMillan. McGrath and MacMillan are professors at Columbia and Wharton respectively, so the presentation has an academic overlay that is systematic and rigorous.
2. Recommended Reading For New Entrepreneurs By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

Looking to learn more about building a new business? We asked Tim Faley, the managing director of the Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor, for books and Web sites he'd suggest to would-be entrepreneurs. He's also the managing director of the school's Wolverine Venture Fund, a venture-capital fund run by Ross students and faculty. Dr. Faley also had been director of technology transfer and commercialization at the University of Michigan's College of Engineering. Prior to joining the university, he was an executive at Dow Chemical Co. in technology transfer and new-business development and a chemical-engineering professor. Here is his list:

1. Crossing the Chasm" By Geoffery A. Moore "It's a marketing classic for entrepreneurs, especially those first starting out. It's critically important that entrepreneurs know who their initial customers are and move onto bigger markets from there. This book offers both insight and information you can go and apply."

"e-Boys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work" By Randall E. Stross "This book follows a group of young venture capitalists during the dot-com era. It gives you a great account from '97 to '99, right as we were ramping up to the peak of the bubble by describing the actions and mindsets of venture capitalists." "Instinct: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial DNA to Achieve Business Goals" By Thomas L. Harrison with Mary H. Frakes "It's a fun book and those who have a technical background will especially like it, because even though it's not a science book, the author uses the language of science as a basis for discussion. He writes about how to recognize your weaknesses and how to build a team around you that compensates for them." "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century" By Thomas L. Friedman "It's particularly important for those just starting out to understand the environment they're entering, and this book talks about how the environment has changed competition, making it more global for every company of every size. It says every company is a global company and you need to think about that when starting one." "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" By Peter F. Drucker "Peter was one of the first to talk about the skills and mindset of an entrepreneur versus the traits. He talks about entrepreneurship in terms of learnable skills, which is important because at the end of the day, it's the skills that matter most." "The Art of the Start: Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything" By Guy Kawasaki "This book gets down to the details about pitching a business plan to venture capitalists for the first time. It goes all the way from how long the presentation should be to how large the font size should be on the slide. And the author does it in a very humorous and tongue-in-cheek way." StartupNation.com "StartupNation presents an uncomplicated process to help first-time entrepreneurs get started. It helps people get over the 'but I don't know where to start' hurdle." kauffman.org "The Kauffman site is rich with entrepreneurial advice and research. The Kauffman Foundation has been and continues to be a strong supporter and advocate of entrepreneurship." (Kauffman.org is the online home of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, publisher of eVenturing.org (formerly entreworld.org), a business partner of StartupJournal.com.)

Gary Hoover

1. I have just started reading this book, Ambient Findability which is all about how people search the web and how businesses can understand it, etc it seems extremely interesting
2. The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information. FROM THE PUBLISHER: economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information. With all the verve and erudition that have established his earlier books as classics, Richard A. Lanham here traces our epochal move from an economy of things and objects to an economy of attention. According to Lanham, the central commodity in our new age of information is not stuff but style, for style is what competes for our attention amidst the din and deluge of new media. In such a world, intellectual property will become more central to the economy than real property, while the arts and letters will grow to be more crucial than engineering, the physical sciences, and indeed economics as conventionally practiced. For Lanham, the arts and letters are the disciplines that study how human attention is allocated and how cultural capital is created and traded. In an economy of attention, style and substance change places. The new attention economy, therefore, will anoint a new set of moguls in the business world—not the CEOs or fund managers of yesteryear, but new masters of attention with a grounding in the humanities and liberal arts. Lanham’s The Electronic Word was one of the earliest and most influential books on new electronic culture. The Economics of Attention builds on the best insights of that seminal book to map the new frontier that information technologies have created." Michael Strong comments: That said, existing humanities and liberal arts provide very little of the kind of expertise he is describing. Design schools do a much better job.

Darius

1. Have you read iCon? This is about Steve Jobs and his story of setting up and then removal from and then coming to Apple you are not the first one. Entrepreneurs all need to learn from Gates, whether they like him or not.

Martin Montero

1. Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders. "The books premise is that you will find your success in business through helping others grow by sharing your intangibles—your knowledge, network and compassion. The book offers new tips and techniques related to life long learning, networking and relationship building." I think this really lines up with what make bootstrap unique. made me think of Steve's principles behind the ripples. Review. His site - Bijoy has meet him before, Amazon Listing
2. The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits by CK Prahalad. This book really encapsulates bootstrap spirit of leveraging resources and networks to create something really cool with little to no resources. As well highlight the principle of Constraint Creates Innovation finding ways to do more with what you have. "The world's most exciting, fastest-growing new market? It's where you least expect it: at the bottom of the pyramid. Collectively, the world's billions of poor people have immense entrepreneurial capabilities and buying power. You can learn how to serve them and help millions of the world's poorest people escape poverty. It is being done-profitably. Whether you're a business leader or an anti-poverty activist, business guru Prahalad shows why you can't afford to ignore "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) markets." This article was turned into a book.