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  • Published: 26 February 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241290927
  • Imprint: Portfolio
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $35.00

Lost and Founder

A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World




The naked truth behind startup culture from entrepreneur and CEO Rand Fishkin

Everyone knows how a startup story is supposed to go: a young, brilliant entrepreneur has an cool idea, drops out of college, defies the doubters, overcomes all odds, makes billions and becomes the envy of the technology world.

This is not that story.

Rand Fishkin, the founder and former CEO of Moz, is one of the world's leading experts on SEO. Moz is now a $45 million a year business, but Fishkin's business and reputation took 15 years to grow, and his startup began not in a Harvard dorm room but as a mother-and-son family business that fell deeply into debt.

Now Fishkin pulls back the curtain on tech startup mythology, exposing the ups and downs of startup life that most CEOs would rather keep secret. For instance: a minimally viable product can be destructive if you launch at the wrong moment. Growth hacking may be the buzzword du jour, but initiatives to your business can fizzle quickly. Revenue and profitability won't protect you from layoffs. And venture capital always comes with strings attached.

In Lost and Founder Fishkin reveals the mostly awful, sometimes awesome truth about startup culture with the transparency and humour that his hundreds of thousands of blog readers have come to love. Fishkin's hard-won lessons are applicable to any kind of business environment and this book can help solve your problems, and make you feel less alone for having them.

  • Published: 26 February 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241290927
  • Imprint: Portfolio
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $35.00

Praise for Lost and Founder

This is a truly courageous book. It's one part business-building guide and two parts Indiana Jones-style adventure memoir. And if you've ever wondered if the 'timeless wisdom' you often hear about startups is bullsh*t, here's the proof

Chris Guillebeau, author of SIDE HUSTLE and THE $100 STARTUP

You won't find a more honest, raw, and helpful look into the trenches of founding a tech startup than this book. Rand Fishkin shares the rare hard-won insight no one else dares tell you

Nir Eyal, author of HOOKED

Most books on founders and entrepreneurship sell a Silicon Valley perspective. Yet the inclusive, egalitarian vision of tech that Rand shares is the one that will truly dent the world

Nilofer Merchant, author of THE POWER OF ONLYNESS

Rand Fishkin is like the industry friend we all wish we had - funny, warm, and refreshingly honest about the rollercoaster ride that is founding your own company

Julie Zhou, VP of Product Design at Facebook

Rand Fishkin is the real deal. This book is an honest, generous and useful look at what actually happens when you build a company, including the downs as well as the ups... I wish I had read it thirty years ago -

Seth Godin, entrepreneur and author