an old friend told me a few days ago how much he enjoyed my ebook. i asked him if he bought it from amazon and he said no. it is available free online. i did a search and this is what i found. this is great. i hope more people could read my book. if you want the latest version (3rd edition) where i corrected many grammatical errors, you can go to amazon. i get about 40 cents a book and it is enough for me to cover my wine budget. it would be great if you could write a review. thx.
i love the article and the insight. this could also be looked at a different way. many entrepreneurs think that vc's are their customers. they are not. they don't consume. they re-sell. if you like check out chapter four of my recently published ebook on my own experience with vc's (free download for a limited time). hope you like and good luck everyone.
hi, i sincerely want to offer you my own experience. please download a free copy of my ebook. i hope it helps. life is a bitch when it comes to entrepreneurship but you got to do what you got to do. just hang in there. drag the epub file to your ipad, iphone, android, etc.
thank you for the feedback. it is self promotion. but that's not always bad. i hope you take a look anyway and find my book (i.e., experience) useful. thanks.
this is the second edition of my 99 cents ebook on entrepreneurship. please download the epub file and drag it into your iphone or ipad (thru itunes), your android device, or nook, etc. would really appreciate it if you could review on amazon. thanks.
A humble immigrant from Macau comes to the U.S. and earns his doctorate in engineering at a prestigious university. Frustrated by the politics of academia, he sets out to free his inner entrepreneur. After a solid start, he is fired by the board of his first start-up. Realizing he is basically unemployable in a traditional job, he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and sets out to learn from his mistakes and start another company. The second attempt is a huge success; he cashes out and retires before his 50th birthday.
In "Survival Guide...", Denny tells the story of his failure, the lessons learned, and how they enabled him to ultimately succeed. A thoughtful, sensitive historian with a flair for reading people, he weaves an entertaining tale of VC's, technologists, money and power. Through it all, he never loses sight of the distinction between "lifestyle" and "life."
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If you want a free copy, please email me at denny dot miu at gmail dot com. Thanks.
I did it. I finally published my second book (my first eBook). There are a total of ten chapters which are basically re-edit of my previous LoveMyTool posts. In this short book (50+ papes), I summarize my twenty years experience in high-tech startups, based on my two companies, one VC-funded and one self-funded.
There are no overnight successes. Building a startup is a journey not a race and it is about value-creation not valuation. I write about my survival techniques in creating values for potential customers which is a much slower, much longer, much more demanding but yet ultimately much more financially rewarding journey than creating valuation for potential investors.
The first 100 downloads are free. I am hoping to get enough exposure so that as many first-time entrepreneurs as possible could benefit from this book. If you like the book, as a personal favor to me, please rate and comment on Lulu.com. The more positive feedback I get, the better chance it will be for the book to appear on their recommended list.
I believe Eric Schmidt is stepping down because he believes doing so is what is best for Google. And I believe his reason has little to do with whether or not he thinks that he is the right person for the job or that Larry Page is the better candidate.
I think Eric believes that it is time for Google to get a real CEO because he has been the CEO in name only.
C is for Chief and Eric was never the chief since he was not the person who gets to make the final decision.
E is for Executive and Eric never spends much time executing because he was too busy herding cats.
O is for Officer and Eric was not able to look out for the interest of all the shareholders, just the two largest ones.
Before I was an entrepreneur (and I believe I am one), I had spend nine years as an untenured Assistant Professor at UCLA. And I remembered my colleagues used to spend a great deal of time and efforts subdividing their disciplines and making sure that everyone inside and outside academia classifying them exactly as they wished to be classified. This was a puzzle to me until I read the following quote from Henry Kissinger (after he had left the government but was turned down by Columbia University), "The reason why there are so much politics in academia is because the stake is so low." I believe the stake is very high in entrepreneurship and I think no one benefits from spending too much time worrying about what we should be called. However, I think the article is a very good one, in the sense that there is indeed a whole lot of work in being a "successful" entrepreneur. Good luck everyone.
If you have no income then there is no "income" tax (neither Federal or State). If you have an office and you are meeting customers, you might have to pay City tax (depending on the City). Once you have income, things start to change. First of all, the $800 Franchise tax is a minimum and California actually charges a percentage based on your "gross" income, not net profit. Also, Federal treats any income you incur as an LLC as employment and is subject to self-employment tax (in addition to Federal and State income tax). My own experience is that in the beginning of a startup, you don't have enough that actually warrants hiring an accountant. My advise is that you learn to be your own accountant until you start hiring. It actually is a good exercise to start paying attention to money as opposed to just hiding behind the comfort of being a technologist. Good luck.
Thank you, Denny. That's a good point about self-employment tax.
Yes, that was my plan, to do it myself, but I find that I'm spending quite a lot of time on busy activities like this - as a follower of MVP/Steve-Blank, I'd rather be out talking to (potential) customers.
I used to run a startup in Southern California so I know for a fact that there aren't too many technology companies down there (other than aerospace and entertainment). The good news is that workers don't tend to move around too much. Jason has done this before. I wonder if his company were in the Bay Area what would happen. I doubt that anyone will stick around to take his abuse. I know I won't.
As a New Yorker, I find Jason refreshing. Most of the tech community has been California-based, and has taken on the kind of casual, low-key California attitude, but if NYC becomes a more prominent area for startup growth, you're going to meet a lot more people like Jason, since the culture in NYC or even the Northeast is much more confrontational.
http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Guide-Start-Entrepreneurs-ebo...