So läuft Start-Up

Because of the title, this is the question I had in mind when I started reading "So läuft Start-Up" by Florian Gschwandtner, and I had hoped to get an answer to it. On his personal website, Florian shares what and whom he wants to reach with the book:

Unfortunately, I didn't get an answer to everything and reached the end with rather mixed feelings. Find out here why I see the book as rather weaker compared to my other reviews.

Unfortunately, there is no very specific problem that the book addresses. As Florian already mentions in the introduction, it is partly his biography, mixed with lessons learned and some interviews he conducted with friends, former colleagues and business contacts. Above all, however, it is one thing: a song of praise about himself. We learn more about how he solved problems through his skill, his diligence and his commitment than about the actual “how” and "what".

We humans learn above all through mistakes! First and foremost our own, but the mistakes of others help us reflect on ourselves and what we do. Unfortunately, in "So läuft Start-Up" we learn very little about mistakes and what consequences they had. All the more, however, about how strong Florian's will is. That's OK once in a while - after all, it's about him - but overall, at some point I found it "too much".

Well, who is the book most suitable for? I had the feeling that, above all, it was good for Florian himself to write down his thoughts and emotions. I believed him that he is very self-reflective and thinks a lot about things. I buy his unconditional ambition and appreciate it - after all, his success proves him right. So the book "So läuft Start-Up" was important for him to process his experiences.

From an outside perspective, I would say the book is suitable for everyone who is really interested in Florian Gschwandtner as a person, and less in concrete tips for building their own company. At least those don't fill most of the book.

We all still remember those school classmates from back then who always said after an exam how hard it was, but were always the ones who got an A. At some point you got tired of it and felt small – just like I did while reading. I would really like to go out for dinner with Florian sometime and chat, because I think we would get along well. From his book, however, I expected more than all the praise of himself, but also from others about him.

It's sentences like this that make Florian come across as inauthentic when, in the interviews, the standard question comes up of what the interviewee learned from Florian and what they "think is great about him". They are almost rhetorical questions that leave no room for anything critical:

If I had to divide the book freely, I would split it into three blocks: the first block is only about Florian, his time at university and how good he is. The second is about Runtastic. The third block is (again) about Florian's private life and his preferences. The book's finest hour is definitely the second block, which starts in the last third: it was really exciting to learn first-hand what the sale of the start-up was like. I haven't read that in such depth anywhere before.

I found the leadership principles just as extremely valuable, which Florian lists and explains in a very vivid and practical way:

1. Playing to win vs. playing to lose
2. Employee motivation: praise, time spent together, gifts and tenderness (trust in a business context)
3. Making decisions: Disagree and commit
4. Start with why
5. Go for the difficult conversations
6. Learning to give and take feedback
7. Understanding interpersonal context
8. Reducing complexity
9. Keynotes, communication, presentation

In summary, as I said, in my opinion the book could have used more about Runtastic and the subject of building a business than from or about Florian himself. Unless it had been a pure biography. The interviews, too, could have had more "meat on the bones": instead of questions about their favorite vacation spot, the interview partners in particular could/should have been able to contribute more of their own business expertise. I think Florian needed the book above all for himself. For me, there was simply too much praise of Florian (from himself and from others about him), even though I like reading books about successful people. I think the combination of "everything was hard, but Florian was harder" over the entire length of the book made it rather weak reading for me. Here I clearly differ from the reviews on Amazon.

In any case, I wish Florian all the best with his new start-up Leaders21 and would be happy to exchange thoughts with him sometime about his ideas and visions of the future. For everyone who wants to learn more about it, why not listen to his leadership podcast.