 "A wake up call" | 2010-02-04 |
| - Reviewed By Socrates Socrates |
Being such a great dreamer that I am, reading this book took me through such an emotional roller coaster. Mr Jerry Kaplan wrote this book very well. Mr Kaplan tried to and did start an IT business but it faltered. I found it very entertaining and informative for entrepreneurs and dreamers alike.
Among other things I got from this book is:
1. It takes more than passion to succeed in life
2. Like it or not, luck has a role in our lives
3. Life is not fair
4. Know when to let go
5. Love what you do
The book is kind of like autobiographical which I found to give the book a well rounded take on entrepreneur-ism. So, if you like reading books about people who've made it in business and also those who could have but never quite made it then this book will be of interest to you. Although the book is about starting and running a business, success or failure is not only limited in the business world and so the lessons one learns in the book may be equally applied in other areas of life where success is not guaranteed. A great book! |
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 "review from the perspective of 2009" | 2009-07-23 |
| - Reviewed By neurasthenic from New York City, New York |
We know a lot more now than Jerry Kaplan could possibly have known when he wrote this book. We know, for example, that pen-based computing never took off the way he expected, that personal digital assistants had a moment in the sun, but were then replaced by cellphones that do not use pen interfaces.
In this book, Kaplan describes the rapid rise of Go Computing, its amazing success in fundraising, but ultimate failure in the face of withering competition from Microsoft, and lack of sales. The book is worthwhile for anybody considering launching a technology company, or investing in, or working for a startup. It is not, however, perfect. Kaplan take shortcuts -- one page they're sketching the parameters of the operating system, and the next page they're introducing two dozen independent software companies that plan to develop for the platform. Where did they come from? How were they signed up? How many ever shipped product? We know that Go shipped both its hardware and software very late, but there is basically no discussion of why. Kaplan saves most of his text for fundraising and the frustrations of working with large corporate partners, with occasional personal asides about his fiance or employees.
Kaplan seems to blame the failure of the company on competition from Microsoft and slow delivery of product, but I think other lessons can also be learned from the experience of Go. For example, though Kaplan & co. elected to build the hardware, operating system, and hardware themselves (also signing up third party developers and ultimately spinning off the hardware arm), they could probably have developed the most compelling parts of their system as applications that ran on existing operating systems, greatly simplifying their task. Their lack of compatibility with existing applications was a real problem, not just "FUD" from Microsoft.
Demos of PenPoint can be found online (check YouTube and Google Video in particular). It is clear that PenPoint was worthless for text entry, which would have made it largely worthless for e-mail as well as writing notes and memos. This would seem to render the device largely useless for their target "on the go" business customers, except for very narrow vertical applications that would generally not justify the high price that their machines carried.
Anyway, a worthwhile book, even if somewhat lacking in analysis. |
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| "The Best Business 'Course' You can Ever Take" | 2009-07-02 |
| - Reviewed By Rod James from New Zealand |
This book is one of the best business tales i have ever read. Coming from a very fresh point of view and a completely different take on the usual business books that are the same and have you asleep before page 15.
This book is an exciting read from page 1 to the end credits and would rival any hollywood movie for drama!
Go was a company way ahead of its time and all the devices we use and love now like palm pilots and even the defunct Apple Newton would never have existed if it was not for Jerry and GO corporation.
It is a scary tale of what happens when someone truly has a great idea and the desperate fight for money to keep the idea alive, and the industry giants desperate to own them or crush them!
a couple of bad choices led to GO's demise but this is a very intelligent read and i would recommend it to anyone even slightly interested in business or the inner workings of what it takes to get a company off the ground. |
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| "Great book" | 2009-05-24 |
| - Reviewed By Jon P. Simms |
| Im reading this book on my lunch breaks and so far it's been a good one very intertaining. |
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| "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking..." | 2009-02-28 |
| - Reviewed By Devin Mckinney |
I was at GO for most of the course of this book, it was my first startup. I built the User Test group, where we QA'd the pen tablet hardware and software. I knew Jerry well, we all did - he always showed up for our internal user testing marathons, eager to participate. Since I was relatively low on the food chain, my memory of the period he wrote about in Start Up was more about the engineering group than about the experiences of the people at the top as they tried to keep us funded and build our business partnerships. I thought it was an excellent read, and gave me a lot of insight both into Jerry's abilities and into how hard they were working at the top. Insights I would never have had from my view from the trenches. Anyway, if you want to see how startups are made, this is a good book.
My fondest memory of Jerry was that whenever he would speak to the company at a company meeting, he would always start by saying "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking..." which was funny because he's actually a brilliant speaker. |
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 "passes the smell test" | 2008-09-17 |
| - Reviewed By jjlaw |
| Though not quite as riveting and fascinating as its author probably thought it was, this is still a passably interesting tale of a young tech company founded more on dreams and possibiliy (thanks to venture capitalists) than tangible reality (during its four year existence doesn't seem to bring any product to the market). This reads as a perfect how not to run a business - borrow too much of other people's money and underestimate the competition (Microsoft plays the big bad villain here, but there are also jabs at IBM and Apple, probably undeserved) that might be forgiveable if Kaplan was some naive 21 year old techie at the start, but he wasn't (late 30s). |
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