Engineering Your Start-Up: A Guide for the High-Tech Entrepreneur, 2nd Ed

I found this book very helpful for several reasons:1. It is a detailed guide for startups. it provides financial, operational and strategic guidelines for startups companies.2. It stresses the need to understand deeply the market and customers.It provides handful examples in how to understand customer needs, i.e. interview with customers to evaluate new products and needs. Being a customer driven company is a must to succeed, also a very important point for VC if you dont understand the market you will likely loose the opportunity to get funds.3. Provides the structure of a basic corporation, board of directors, management team etc.4. Jumps into the conclusion that it's easier to sell new products to a current market, suggest strongly to prevent missionary selling in new markets.5. Provides an insight of the details that we need to care of when presenting the new company to new investors, VCs.Very good book if you're in the journey to creating a new company. worth reading.

This book's special expertise is about designing the financing of your startup!A few years ago when I did a business plan for a technology start-up, the first edition of this book was my source for planning for equity participation for founders, employees, VCs, and the public from founding through IPO. When this second edition came out, I bought it to pass along to a friend in the early stages of a startup.If you are a technical member of a startup, you must read this unless you are already sophisticated in the financing of startups. Don't talk to a VC until you have studied this book.The title is the key. "Engineers" and other technical types will find this a quick and interesting book. And if you are going to play "Monopoly," you must at least know the basic rules first. This is how the game is played in Silicon Valley! If you don't, you will not pass GO and will not collect $200.

This book has a lot more meat than most other start-up books I have come across so far. In particular it has good explanations of the different financing and compensation options -- making the book useful not just for founders who may need to negotiate with venture capitalists, but also for anyone who works at a start-up (and doesn't know what the difference between stock and stock options are, or how to estimate how much what they are getting may eventually be worth). On the other hand the level of detail about how to get things done isn't always down to the cookbook level, and there is frequent advice along the lines of "have your legal department do x". That may be a good idea, but it's not always an option, and at least I'd expect some discussion about how to get good legal advice etc.

This book is perfect for entrepreneurs thinking about forming a company to commercialize a technology (if you're planning a service business or a low tech business, there are more suitable guides). Readers will really appreciate the book's structure, thoroughness, and writing clarity. Following are the book's main lessons:* Preparedness for the startup lifestyle.* How to form a company and assemble a management team, board of directors and advisors.* How to position the product, identify markets, and target customers.* Importance of building a market-focused business (i.e. identifying the opportunity before developing the technology).* Advice on intellectual property.* Guide to writing the business plan.* How to pitch investors and understand funding terms.* How to compensate and incentivize employees.The authors, having obviously been through multiple ventures, are excellent mentors. Their experience will help you to think things through and avoid many pitfalls.

Months ago, before I knew any better, I would have rated this 5 stars. But ever since getting into Lean Methodology and all the requirements for making a lean Startup, I realize that this book only worked in the era of slow moving and giant companies. Nowadays, you have to be customer-focused and agile to hang with the big players. This book makes you take on too much waste early on. For a beginner, I suggest you start with something like the Four Steps to Epiphany, and other books and blogs recommended by Steve Blank and Eric Ries. You might still want to read this to compare and contrast like a before and after, but seriously, this book belongs in a museum.P.S. Some of the Legal advice is spot on though

A bit outdated.

I have read lots of books on doing high-tech startups and previously would have credited "High Tech Startup" by Nesheim as the top of list, but now this book displaces it from the number one position. To be clear, I would highly recommend both books, but this one covers many of the various topics that should be considered in great detail when thinking about and making the decision to venture out on your own in the world of VC funded startups. Having done a VC funded startup of my own, many of the topics covered here rang true to me and were also backed up by well referenced and substantiated claims and advice on leaving your current employer, handling founder issues, structuring the firm, raising capital etc. Highly Recommended.

An excellently written book that covers all the bases if you want to be a founder in High-Tech and need guidance this is the one book you must have. I've bought this book not only for myself but copies for co-founders. If you have been approached to join a start-up get this book it will answer all your questions regard the rewards and the risks.