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| Starting Something: An Entrepreneur's Tale of Control, Confrontation & Corporate Culture | 
 enlarge | Author: Wayne Mcvicker
Publisher: Ravel Media, LLC
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $3.99
You Save: $14.96 (79%)
Buy New/Used from $3.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  (22 reviews)
Sales Rank: 648587
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 409
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1932881026
Dewey Decimal Number: 338
EAN: 9781932881028
ASIN: 1932881026
Publication Date: January 15, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
A piercingly honest and highly personal story of how a software firm that accidentally became a dotcom darling and eventually a $3 billion public company, survived its struggles in the face of daunting obstacles. Delivers a wealth of insight, information, and advice for entrepreneurs. An unflinching look at both the dark and the bright sides of corporate culture.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Good Start Up Story March 1, 2008
This is a good example of a start up and how much work is involved. By highlighting the ups and downs, it paints the real picture of a start-up, not just the glam.
If you are in start-up and looking for something big, read this one! December 16, 2007
If you wanted to read a definitive true story about pre dotcom, bubble and post bubble trials and tribulations, this is the one, sinc eat the end they built a solid profitable company. I chuckled at all the characters that McVickers met with the language that was used when reason left the industry to be totally replaced/driven by greed. . For those of us lucky enough to enjoy that whole wild ride, this book brings it all back. The start-up struggles and financing on debt. Placing bets on directions with your own well being/family. The people are all there, reluctant angels, greedy guys, lazy guys, arrogant amd humble types, disaster hires, reluctant hires wanting a big piece of the action, VCs, investment bankers, handlers, hold-up artists, PR pros, Barney deal makers, aggressive Competitive cos and their VCs, Take no prisoners sales guys/CEOs. This is all played out from the point of view of a fairly humble technical guy who just wanted to do something good. And the money stories, they all were happening. This is well written, easy to follow and a good pleasurable read. If you are in start-up and looking for something big, read this one!
Entrepreneurial Understanding October 27, 2007
This book covers many aspects of the entrepreneurial process. Written in a journal-style, the book takes on more the form of a dramatic novel, covering the growth of McVicker's company, Neoforma, from their beginnings as a poor internet start-up, all the way to their IPO. McVicker navigates through the convoluted process of starting this business, and provides a tremendous amount of insight into his experiences. The names in the book take on life as McVicker describes them interacting in the start-up process. Well written and packed with information, this is a good read for anyone interested in starting their own business.
 Misses the point? December 27, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I fully admire the guts it took for Wayne to start a business, I fully admire the hard work he and his employees put in, and I fully admire his candor, since there was a lot in his book that deserved to be told, especially on the company-investor relationship side. But I couldn't help noticing that whenever he spoke glowingly of the company's progress and achievements, he measured them in terms of employee growth and fundraising stats, rather than REVENUE or PROFIT.
Here's why:
1999 - $1 million revenue, operating loss of $51 million
2000 - $10 million revenue, operating loss of $219 million
2001 - $3 million revenue, operating loss of $273 million
2002 - $4 million revenue, operating loss of $81 million
2003 - $11 million revenue, operating loss of $65 million
2004 - $13 million revenue, operating loss of $62 million
2005 - revenues finally started growing for real, because they bought some with their own stock, and then were acquired by another company end of 2005/beginning of 2006
Total for the six full years:
Revenue = $42 million
Losses = $751 million
That basically means the company spent $793 million in order to get $42 million of revenue. Think about those numbers for a second. If you're providing a service, and people are paying you 5 cents for every dollar you spend, well, maybe that's not such a great business to be in.
This book's an engaging and well-written chronicle of one of the shining examples of bubble era craziness. I'm not at all downplaying the truth or value in the general lessons, in the growing pains & emotional reversals of fortune Wayne goes through, and I'm not trying to pin the blame on him for all the missteps. I just hope that aspiring entrepreneurs who read this book balance it out with one on a business that worked, because there are a lot of those that make for interesting reading too, and luck isn't the only thing that distinguishes their trajectory from this one.
Reading Between The Lines October 18, 2006
Starting Something captures the rocket ride to IPO in a truly remarkable way that makes the reader feel he's riding co-pilot. I found the discussion about their venture investor, Venrock Associates, to be of particular interest because it appears that "Bret," the Venrock Partner, was given additional equity in Neoforma after Venrock's investment (pp. 308-310). The problem with this kind of thing is that Bret works for the limited and general partners of the firm, not himself, and he took equity right out of their pockets.
Is there any way to justify Bret's actions here? Please, tell me that I'm missing something here.
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