Srini's Blog

Here is a write-up on couple of books that I liked reading and learning internals about start ups and how it all works. I would recommend both of them equally. Both have their own strong points in various topics. For example, 'High Tech Start Up' shines in the area of market analysis and product planning; 'Engineering Your Start-up' shines in the area of accounting and finance with lots of templates and ready-made excel sheets to get started with planning. 

Again, just like any good book and education, learn as much as possible and see what makes sense and relevant for your situation. 

Quadrant 1: New Product and New Market - Missionary sales and tech push. This is where, consumers don't know they need the product and there is no existing product. Typically high risk and costly. 

Second one: (Amazon link) Engineering Your Start-Up: A Guide for the High-Tech Entrepreneur (2nd Edition)

It has total of 21 chapters spanning over 400 pages. Accounting, Finances, and Term Sheets are dealt really well in this book. 'Rule of X Competitors' and Financial Statements really impressed me from this book. 

Rule of X Competitors: Take any market, at any point in time, there is a room for only X viable competitors. As from the definition, obviously, the smaller the X, the better. According to the author, if X is more than 7, you might want to reconsider the plan. 

On the Financial Statements, it is tough to cover details in a post like this, however following quick 3 statements are something you want to keep track of all the time. 

Final Note: Rules are there to break and laws are there to follow. So you can read and learn about how it is done typically but just adapt the rules according to your situation.