This book is less than £2.60 to Amazon Prime members. On that basis, The Ultralight Startup is recommended.

The Ultralight Startup

By Jason L Baptiste

Dave Thackeray
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

Books are a great way to curate knowledge. They are an ideal way for us lazy people to consume the best information in the shortest possible time.

Because never more so than today have we been in thrall to shortcuts. Fast tracking used to be the stuff of dreams. I remember when I was at university that banking institutions would honour us graduates with a fast track to the top echelons, bypassing the chores of being a cashier to take control of branches in a few short years.

But these days we expect to be fast tracked. Whole industries have sprung from courses helping us to rise quicker, attain genius faster (like that works), become wealthier without the effort (again — right) and generally be better in a period that previously wasn’t humanly possible.

Of course, it still isn’t. But we buy the hype. We always buy the hype.

And so here we are at The Ultralight Startup: Launching a Business Without Clout or Capital, a book by Jason Baptiste that shares kernels of wisdom from his 26 years on earth.

I think I’d be insulting Jason to suggest that an entire book can be generated from dabbling in the world of startups. I don’t think coining his experience as dabbling is insulting, either. Jason, now 31, is a great deal wiser and more rational about what’s required for successful startup behaviour than when this book was birthed in 2012.

But like books about Apple, everyone scurries to works with the word startup in them. It’s to modern day curiosity what guides to ‘the sharpest sword’, and ‘how to avoid early death by cholera, leprosy and typhoid fever’ might have been in mediaeval times.

Jason is sufficiently canny not to draw simply from his own canon of work but to find answers from major players in the startup space — Dennis Crowley of Foursquare, among them.

What we learn from this book is that you must plan to be in it for the long haul. To build apps you yourself find useful. Think first of fans, then customers. Don’t be afraid of doing the daft to promote yourself.

If you’re building a software company this will be a useful addition to your doubtless sagging shelf. If not, more important works demand your attention. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is a great primer on setting up your stall for startup success. The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau is a rare breed in doling out sage advice while being a fun read.

Creating a startup isn’t easy and some people should stick to starting up. That’s all I’m saying.

The Ultralight Startup: Launching a Business Without Clout or Capital is right now ridiculously cheap on Amazon.co.uk. It’s worth a couple of quid and chump change.

Book reviews

Mostly business, sometimes fiction, almost always both

Dave Thackeray

Written by

Founder of Word And Mouth | Host of #Thacknology

Book reviews

Mostly business, sometimes fiction, almost always both

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