Founders at Work: How to Read a Book

In a recent blog post (http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/03/founders_at_wor.html), Guy Kawasaki wrote a great review of Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston. I like the way he reads books. See his copy of the book in the illustration below. The yellow stickies on top are ideas for his next book. The yellow stickies out the side are ideas for his blog.



In his review, he tells 15 stories from the book. Here's one:

James Currier (Tickle). “When we started the company, we wanted to change the world, and we had all these tests on the site to help people with their lives. We had the anxiety test, the parenting, relationship, and communications tests. And no one came. … ’Let’s do a test for what kind of breed of dog you are.’ … We put it online and 8 days later we had a million people trying to enter our site.”

The lesson to learn from his story is simple: Make your news releases or promotions interesting and unusual. We have all seen dozens of tests on parenting and relationships, but few of us have ever taken a test on what breed of dog we are. No wonder millions flocked to the site.