The cofounder of Blip.tv started having panic attacks walking down the
street. Tony Hsieh snoozed six times one morning because he hated
working at the company he had created. Groupon was called “offensive”
and “racist” for one of its commercials. Cheek’d lost $30,000 in sales
because they forgot to store credit card information. These are the
“harsh reality” stories you’ll find in Startup Mixology: Tech Cocktail’s
Guide to Building, Growing, & Celebrating Startup Success (Wiley, June
2014, ISBN: 978-1-118-84438-0, $25.00, www.tech.co/book).
“There are thousands of hopeful entrepreneurs with good ideas, but most
of them don’t know where to start,” says author Frank Gruber. “And
because they’re familiar with only the ‘overnight’ success stories the
media highlights, these newbies jump into the startup game with
unrealistic expectations and insufficient knowledge and often pay
devastating consequences.”
David Cohen, cofounder of TechStars, says, “Tech startups are hyped up
and glorified lately, and Startup Mixology gives us a reality check:
This isn’t easy! The sections on what can go wrong help entrepreneurs
avoid getting blindsided when reality doesn’t live up to fantasy.”
In the book, you’ll hear about the early struggles, stumbles,
bootstrapping, and breakthroughs of entrepreneurs like Hsieh of Zappos,
Bre Pettis of MakerBot, Matt Mullenweg of WordPress, Laura Fitton of
HubSpot, and many more. Amid the obstacles and uncertainty, you’ll also
learn how entrepreneurs stay sane and motivated by celebrating positive
moments along the way. Think cake baking, workations, and (Gruber’s
favorite) llama parades.
Many of these stories come from entrepreneurs whom Gruber and his team
at Tech Cocktail have met over the past eight years as they put on
hundreds of events in over 40 cities. Gruber is a serial entrepreneur
who left his job at AOL to pursue the startup dream and learned lots of
lessons the hard way. As of today, Tech Cocktail has received $2.5
million in funding from Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project and has grown to a
team of 13.
