Net Know-How
By Jim Romeo
281pp. Newport: Aegis. $14.95
There's a genre of business literature best described as a kind of hagiography. It depicts not the actual lives of business leaders (which would require delving into subtleties) but graphic depictions of their exploits. By looking at how others have made it in the business world, the thinking goes, you too can find the path to fame and fortune.
Adding to that corpus comes Net Know-How. Scurrying between 25 different dot-com start-ups, author Jim Romeo provides a fascinating peek behind the curtains. He interviews the founders of each company at length and attempts to capture the secret of their success.
Romeo asks each a series of open-ended questions. Responses are surprisingly similar. Invariably, the primary concern of an entrepreneur is money. Getting money to start the business. Asking for enough money in the first place (several CEOs advise asking for more than you think you'll need). Spending the money wisely once you've got it. These interviews were conducted recently, after the venture capital spigot was turned off, but finances are clearly uppermost in everyone's mind.
Romeo poses some additional questions best described as odd. There's a recurring question about dot-com dress codes, for example. Anyone care to guess the universal response? As though there was a start-up where double-breasted suits with peak lapels were de rigueur.
If there's one insight to be gleaned from this book, it's the value of personality. A single dynamic person (or group of people) can literally will a company into existence. Someone with a passionate belief in an idea, whatever it may be, is infinitely more valuable than any amount of money. Invariably, start-up companies are told their business plan will never work and they better get used to the word "no." Yet, as Net Know-How shows time and again, those hurdles can be overcome.
What makes Net Know-How so eminently readable is the fact it offers actual conversations with dot-com entrepreneurs, not press release puffery. Speaking with remarkable candor (no doubt thinking they have nothing to lose in this economy) the CEOs relate both their successes and mistakes. Lest anyone think all dot com founders are rolling in new-found wealth, these entrepreneurs frankly describe their ongoing struggles.
Their attitudes are irrepressibly hopeful, and enthusiasm is infectious. Numerous examples of perseverance in the face of countless obstacles, particularly in our dot-bombed landscape, are heartening. If nothing else, Net Know-How is worth reading simply to channel that entrepreneurial spirit.
While it's always interesting in a voyeuristic way to see what others have done in the business world, readers would do well to remember the words of Samuel Johnson: "No man ever yet became great by imitation."
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