BOOK REVIEW (The Ideal Startup by Nicholas Aruho)

THE IDEAL STARTUP BY NICHOLAS ARUHO

 The Ideal Startup by Nicholas Aruho is a book about entrepreneurship. It centers on startups in specifically African third world countries. It articulates practical strategies and steps of starting, prospering and sustaining a startup. It talks about a number of topics including but not limited to, coming up with startup ideas, raising of capital, book and record keeping, legal aspects of the business, making and leading a winning team, making and presenting a winning pitch deck and business plan.

With the field of business literature being flooded with mostly books from foreign countries, The Ideal Startup attempts to bridge the gap by providing content of relevance to the African third world countries like Kenya and Uganda.

The biggest win for this book is its practicability in its targeted market. The statistics and even the referenced businesses are of those within or at least began within the boundaries of this African third world countries. There is clear evidence of thorough research put into the content to validate the stated facts. Also, the author having a background in business professionally with a good number of years of experience gives the book some authority.

The book is well arranged systematically with the ideation process and raising of capital starring the opening chapters. The jargon used is technical yet simple making it easy to understand for anyone who can read English. The book is well structured and designed right from the cover page to the content pages.

Whereas the localization is a plus, it is like a two-edged saw, it cuts on both sides. Reading the book even as a Kenyan, in some section of the book I felt left out. Especially the pages dedicated to the legal aspects of the books. The pages were solely based on the Ugandan ways of paying the taxes and the responsible authorities, this was a turnoff. Good thing these contents comes towards the end of the book, I would have snapped out of my reading had it been at the beginning.

There are a number of favorite lines or statements I picked from the book. Maybe just to point out a few of them;

      “Starting is about experimenting and finding out what works and what doesn’t work. You should be quick to discard what doesn’t work and adopt what works.”

      “Innovators should not fear bringing in other partners in the business as long as such partners are vetted and come with complimentary skills. You are better off owning a small part of a bug business than owning 100% of a small or failed business.”

        “Pitching is like selling and therefore you should expect to be rejected many times. What matters is t stay positive and keep trying.”

         “in the end, all entrepreneurs are in the service business, because even if you are selling a product, the service offered while selling to the customer is the one that will determine whether the customer will come back or not.”

“in the words of Andy Stanley, leaders who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.”

Above all, I definitely enjoyed reading this book. It was very much enlightening. To you who is planning to start a business, to venture into entrepreneurship or you already have, and you are from Kenya, Uganda and largely African countries, I confidently recommend this read. Good thing it is well distributed across different countries and the pricing is quite affordable. I bought mine at 1,300 Ksh from Nuria store. You can get from them or check from your local store.