Ed Dowding

1. The Art of Starting
   • Make meaning
   • Ask women
   • Get going
2. The Art of Positioning
   • Seize the high ground
   • Make it personal
   • Niche thyself
3. The Art of Pitching
   • Explain in the first minute
   • Answer the little man
   • 10 slides
     • Title
     • Problem
     • Solution
     • Business model
     • Underlying magic
     • Marketing and sales
     • Competition
     • Team
     • Projections
     • Status and timeline
   • 20 minutes
   • 30 point font
4. The Art of Writing a Business Plan
   • Pitch then plan
   • Focus on the executive summary
   • Write deliberate, act emergent
5. The Art of Raising Capital
   • Build a real business
   • Get an intro
   • Clean up your act
6. The Art of Bootstrapping
   • Manage for cash flow, not profitability
   • Build a bottom-up forecast
   • Focus on function, not form
7. The Art of Recruiting
   • Hire infected people
   • Double check your gut
   • Apply the shopping center test
8. The Art of Partnering
   • Partner for “spreadsheet” reasons
   • Ensure that middles and bottoms like the deal
   • Cut win-win deals
9. The Art of Branding
   • Create a contagion
   • Lower the barriers to adoption
   • Foster a community
10. The Art of Rainmaking
    • Let a hundred flowers blossom
    • Suck down
    • Go after agnostics
11. The Art of Being a Mensch
    • Help a lot of people
    • Do what’s right
    • Pay back society

Summary of Art of the Start, by Guy Kawasaki