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1) document the improvements you want to make;

2) define how you expect those improvements to change customer behavior;

3) assign a financial value to each behavior;

4) estimate best- and worst-case scenarios for how far the needle will move;

5) estimate the cost of the project; and

6) plug the data into a spreadsheet and run “what if” scenarios to arrive at a realistic range of potential ROI.

To improve their estimating skills, customer experience professionals should track actual ROI from each project they do and use info about what they got right and what they got wrong to hone future projections.

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• How to position and pitch a new business
• How to get the most benefit from branding and staffing
• Why starting a business is akin to a spiritual undertaking, requiring belief in the project’s worth and its benefit to society

Why you should read The Art of the Start
This is not a manual, but rather a collection of mostly useful tips for people who wish to start businesses, or even, as author Guy Kawasaki claims, other sorts of projects, including nonprofit organizations. Kawasaki may over-use business-babble such as “bootstrapping” or “rainmaking” (in fact, he recommends coming up with a brand name that can enter the language as a verb, such as Google or Xerox) – but his style is good-natured and humorous. The chapters are divided accessibly with subheads, charts, bullet points, “minichapters,” answers to “Frequently Avoided Questions” and reading lists, making it easy to find important points. Many of Kawasaki’s “exercises” are tongue-in-cheek, like, “Go to eBay and search for used Aeron chairs.” He got his start working at Apple Computer, marketing early MacIntoshes, and he now runs a venture capital firm, Garage Technology Ventures. He refers to both frequently, and most of the book’s examples come from these venues, not from inside knowledge of others start-ups, even though the author has been involved in several. This isn’t the only book you’ll need to read when you decide to start a business, but getAbstract.com finds that its iconoclastic pointers are useful and fun, and its sections on pitching, recruiting and branding, in particular, apply to businesses of any size.

About the Author
Guy Kawasaki got his start in marketing at Apple Computer and went on to found several high tech businesses. He currently runs the venture capital firm Garage Technology Ventures

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