“Anyone who reads How I Built This will have an incredible advantage. Guy provides the compass, the map and the headlamp you need to navigate the wilderness of entrepreneurship.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
The title is direct as a marketing book title deserves to be. How I Built This by Guy Raz takes the reader down the pathways by which the world’s leading entrepreneurs put together their businesses, taking the leap of faith from dreams to actuality. Each of the chapters focuses on an aspect that mattered to the founder of the business highlighted in the chapter. Whether it was funding or finding a partner or getting that spark of inspiration or surviving catastrophe and scaling new heights again. Raz does not intend the book for entrepreneurs – they already know what they want to be. Instead he targets it at those dreamers who just can’t get their act together or who have the ambition but don’t have the requisite spring board for action. The chapter titles allow you to go to what you’re looking for if you’re in a hurry to get started with headings like Be Open to Ideas, Do your Research, Find your Co-founder, Fund the Business and When Catastrophe Strikes.
Raz’s style is simple and direct and he holds the reader’s attention with the examples he chooses and there are plenty of insights to be gained from some of the world’s leading entrepreneurs – for example, the start of Allbirds from unused wool, or a Buddhist monk’s mindfulness app. The book is based on Raz’s well appreciated NPR Podcasts and is a must read for those interested in entrepreneurship and the stories behind organisations as well as for the dreamers who want to be self made.
Reviewed by:
Anjana Basu
Added 18th December 2020
