tl;dr: The Startup Playbook, 2nd Edition Launches today! Use discount code SPLB2 to get 30% off directly from Wiley or buy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indie Bound or BAM.

“This book is extraordinarily fresh and exciting. In an accessible, straight talk fashion, this book is a manual, and an inspiration. The Startup Playbook is smart and avoids the ‘I am so smart’ over-writing endemic to the genre. Read this as it is presented. You’ll be doing yourself a tremendous favor.”

Amazon Reviewer

Two years ago, we set out to write the go-to book for new entrepreneurs. After starting 11 companies between us – some successes and some miserable, crash-and-burn failures – as well as investing in and advising hundreds more, it was clear that startups weren’t getting the information they needed to shift the odds of success in their favor.

The first edition of The Startup Playbook clearly filled that need. It sold out of its first printing and became an Amazon bestselling startup and overall business book. 13,000 books and 100 reviews averaging 4.8 stars later, Techstars and Wiley joined forces to publish the second edition of the book. It’s being released today!

The things that made the book different in its first printing remain in the second . . .

• We aren’t academicians speaking about theories or passing on the stories of others. This book is a founder-to-founder dialogue sharing the most important things we’ve learned in the trenches.
• It’s thorough – it’s not a pamphlet. We expect readers to come back to it year after year throughout their startup journey. Everything we’ve learned in 45 combined years in the startup world is contained in these pages.
• While we’ve had a fair number of successes, we’ve both crashed and burned several times. We share many of those mistakes we made. They are valuable to understand so that you don’t repeat them yourself.
• We don’t tow the party line – many of our beliefs run contrary to the collective wisdom in the startup community. We think that many are self-serving and exist to help investors, advisor, mentors, etc instead of the startups themselves.

We still offer our personal, how-to guide for building a startup from the ground up. You’ll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts we’ve learned that will shift the odds in your favor. We share our tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion with you.

But, in this second edition, we’ve revised, expanded, and improved on the stories and updated the examples to be more topical. We’ve also included a new foreword by Venture Capitalist, Brad Feld, author of Venture Deals.

The book includes expanded sections focused on:

• How and why you build a founding team
• How to deliver a product
• How much capital you’re going to need
• Startup culture
• Dealing with funding issues
• Vetting your idea
• And so much more . . .

One of the biggest pieces of feedback we got from the first edition was that it was easy to read and to apply. We’ve even improved on that in the second edition, making it a great read straight through or a resource that entrepreneurs can come back to when they have a question.

We’re thrilled to release the new edition of The Startup Playbook and to be working with Techstars and Wiley. We hope you’ll love the book and it will help you start your first venture!