Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

by Guy Kawasaki

Book Overview

For nearly three decades, Guy Kawasaki has earned a stellar reputation as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and irreverent pundit. His 2004 bestseller The Art of the Start has become the most acclaimed bible for small businesses and his blog is one of the 50 most popular in the world. Now Kawasaki has compiled his best wit, wisdom and contrarian opinions in handy book form - from competition to customer service, innovation to marketing, he shows...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591842239
• ISBN13: 9781591842231
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Portfolio
• Length: 474 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Truth, Wisdom and Humor - Guy Kawasaki's Best Book Yet

Rare is the time I pick up a nearly 500 page book on business that's keeps me up reading after everyone in the house has already gone to bed. But, with Reality Check, Guy's hit a home run. Truth - I've read hundreds of books on entrepreneurship, marketing, careers, yadda, yadda, yadda. Heck, I've even written one of my own (Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love). And, you can pretty much tell within the first 20 pages the difference between books written by people who've "studied" entrepreneurship and those written by people who've "lived" it. The first offer great advice...that works in a vacuum. The latter reveal what it's really all about. They speak the truth, based on what the writer has lived and breathed. As a lifetime entrepreneur and writer, that's the book I want to read. And, that's the book Guy has delivered. Wisdom - 461 friggin' pages of it...and it's not 300 pages of juicy stuff and 161 pages of self-serving fluff. It's ALL juice! What do I mean by that? It's not about theory. Reality Check delivers you into the conversations, presentations, strategy sessions, critical decisions and actions that nearly every budding entrepreneur wrestles with. Then, Guy serves up actionable, specific, aggressive do's, don'ts, tips, tasks, strategies and scripts based on real live experience sitting on both sides of the funding table, the boardroom table, the podium...and the plywood garage table. I stopped taking notes and dog-earing pages when I realized I was doing it on every page! Style & Humor - If you're looking for dry, professorial, textbook style writing...go away, that's not Guy's style. And thank God for that. Like all of Guy's books, this one is irreverent, edgy and engaging. And, Guy sense humor really comes through in this one, too. Enough to keep a 500 page tome fresh to the end. In fact, the Foreword 2.0, written by Dan Lyons a/k/a Fake Steve Jobs, had me laughing out loud and e-mailing people to strong-arm them into buying the book just to read the intro. Look, you can keep reading reviews or you can just buy the darn book now. Which you choose will very likely determine whether you're a real entrepreneur...or you just like reading what people who write about them think.

An Authentic Tretise on the World of Work and Business

Guy Kawasaki is an evangelist. He can't help himself. Thank God. I, too, was one of the Twitter people who got a preview of the book in digital form and literally laughed out loud -- at the local coffee shop - yeah, I looked stupid. But it was worth it. I thought it was going to be a short book. At least it seemed that way because I flew through the digital version fairly quickly. So when I saw how big it was (460 pages, 94 Chapters - each one is just a couple pages long - so don't freak out) I thought I'd never get through it. But can I just tell you that it is BY FAR the most entertaining, informative, true-to-life rant on what's good and bad about the world of entrepreneurship, business, presentations - and more. All the things everyone of us has wanted to say out loud - but has never had he guts is in there. I have so many favorite chapters I don't know where to begin. Since I have this rule about NOT working with A-holes, I'll start with that one. (That would be Chapter 87, pg. 401) First he describes an A-hole (so you can test to see if you are one), then he goes on to outline some quick and easy strategies of dealing with A-Holes - and so on. Other favorite chapters are the one's I've themed as "Lies." Throughout the book Guy outlines the Lies different groups tell each other: Lies CEO's tell, Lies Venture Caps Tell, Lies Entrepreneurs tell. These are rants to be sure - but what makes this book so utterly wonderful is that Kawasaki tells you how to avoid them and how to set yourself up for success -- please, for everyone's sake (I can almost hear him say) In the preview version (I'm not sure where it is in the big book - perhaps it was edited) he basically says that VC's are sick of people asking for money when they haven't already gotten customers (just promises). The quote went something like "Just once I'd love to have someone ask for money so they can expand and grow because they have too many customers and are out of capacity." See what I mean? The language is so simple. The message so true and so real, that even I can remember something I glanced over MONTHS ago. To me, that's the sign of a great book. And now, a confession. I didn't want to like Guy Kawasaki - or his book. I don't go for all this web and book celebrity stuff. Everything is so automated and fake anymore, I guess I'm getting cynical. But Guy Kawasaki practices what he preaches. He connects, he participates and he is good at what he does - and doesn't see why the rest of us can't be good as well. Like I said Guy Kawasaki is an evangelist -- and a good one too.

A Useful and Magical Book

As I wrote on my blog: "If you love Guy's smarts and irreverent charm, you've got to read this book. If you have never read his blog or books -- or seen him speak -- this is the place to start if you want to understand why Guy has such a huge and loyal army of fans." The other reviewers are right, this is the best stuff from one of the smartest and most charming business writers on the planet. One of the secrets of his success is that Guy somehow manages to talk about serious ideas, give great advice, while not taking himself very seriously in the process.

Not Just Relevant, A Fun Read, Too!

Guy does it again, with his famous talent for evangelizing entrepreneurship at its very best, and the straight-talk on those things and those people you need to watch out for. I've read his other books, his blog, his Tweets and heard him speak "live" -- this book brings Guy's wit and humor to life. If you're an entrepreneur (especially at this time in our economy) this is a must read.

Great Entrepreneurial words of wisdom.

I read the book prior to it's release. It's a really interesting and informative read. I'm not one who has a big idea to shop around sadly, but I feel that I could push it now if I got a sudden brainstorm. From Pitching your concept to Evangelizing it, Guy walks you through all the steps necessary to be a success. A brilliantly written book, easy to get into and fun, something that is pretty rare in business books.