Smartups: Lessons from Rob Ryan's Entrepreneur America Boot Camp for Start-Ups
Author: Rob Ryan
List Price: $18.95
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ISBN: 0801488311
Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr (November, 2002)
Sales Rank: 69,862
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
In-your-face Entrepreneur Brainstorming
This is the newly released paperback version of Rob Ryan's earlier Entrepreneur America book. Great basic advice from a guy born in the Bronx and nurtured in the Valley who wnet on to found Ascend. Ryan pulls no punches in leading the reader (and his select entrepreneurs) on asking the hard questions about their ideas, companies and products to determine a core value propostion (and if there is one!). Definitely a must-read for anyone wanting to start a new business regardless of whether you've done it once or ten times! (So where's my autographed edition, Rob?)
Rating: 2 out of 5
Boy isn¿t Rob Ryan a really smart guy.
I was ultimately disappointed by this book. It spent too much time emphasizing how incredibly smart a guy Rob Ryan is. It seemed very repetitious. Yes, it is written in a lighthearted style, but overall seemed like it only had enough content for a magazine article. He's been mentioned in Inc. magazine several times, which is what prompted me to buy it, but I didn't really learn that much from the book. One of the least useful of my many books on entrepreneurship. It does have a nice cover.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Ascend founder and evangelist - who better to ask?
Joining Ascend in 1991 was a risky move for me. Who the heck were they, anyway?
Then I met Rob.
The rest is history.
I've always enjoyed telling that story (usually a much longer and funnier version) to anyone interested in the Ascend tale. The book that we are reviewing here is in typical Rob style. I can not imagine anyone else writing it this way. It's just him. "Do the Dogs like the Dog Food" - if you ever spent any time chatting with Rob, you'd easily guess that this was one of his quips.
Even if I had not read this book (which I have done a few times now), I'd probably still recommend it. Rob was, and still is, an entrepreneurs entrepreneur.
I only wish I could find him again in a new guise here in Silicon Valley - and relive those Ascend days.
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Book Index