Chad Vavra

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

Guy Kawasaki’s new book Reality Check is a what to do and what not to do in business, specifically start-ups in the silicon valley.  It covers a variety of topics including Pitching, Venture Capital, Business Plans, Meetings, Innovation, Customer Service, Speeches, Evangelizing, PR, E-mail, and Schmoozing.

One of the selling points for me was the the quote on the back cover, “Ten is the optimal number of slides in a pitch because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting.”  After a decade of sitting through crushingly boring presentations with too many slides that were overpresented and rushed that I’m easily sold by anyone who fights for brevity and clarity in presentations.

Fortunately, advice on presentations was not the only good advice in this book.  I also enjoyed Kawasaki’s advice on pitching for venture captital and the many chapters on how people in all postions will lie to you and how you will lie back.  I was reminded of something I read about the relationships between politicians and the press on campaign trails.  It was said that over the course of a campaign the press and politicians staff will for friendships but it is always known that at any point one or the other will throw the other under the bus. Business is like this and this book is good advice to get through it.