No secret to anyone that knows me, that I love books.
What might be a secret are the number of books-related projects I’ve made over the years. I thought it would be fun to collect them all.
The Hawaii Project
The one that started it all. After I left Telenav, after the goby acquisition, I wanted to work on books. So I built The Hawaii Project, a personalized Book Recommendation engine.
Using the recommendations engine from The Hawaii Project, I built an Alexa skill you can talk to, and get book recommendations. (Three years later, Amazon copied me and released their own What Should I Read Next … grr….). Get mine here.
BookTrap
BookTrap is a trapper / keeper for books you find on the web. It’s a Chrome extension. When you’re on a page and an interesting book is mentioned, hit the BookTrap button. We’ll scan the page and find the books mentioned, which you can then add to your account to remember them.
Book Roulette shows you an interesting new book each time you open a new tab in Chrome (or Brave!). Another Chrome extension. Get it here.
Codexmap
It’s defunct, but it plotted book locations on a google map.
Book Playlist
Build Spotify playlists for books. Featured on Product Hunt! (https://www.producthunt.com/posts/book-playlist). Since subsumed into The Hawaii Project.
(this is a repost of something I wrote a long time ago on LinkedIn)
Bookship was very fortunate to be selected by The Bookseller as one of six candidates for BookTech Company of the Year. Super exciting; great validation; great reason to go to London :).
As part of the event, each candidate gets 5 minutes to pitch, hard stop at 5 minutes.
Now, 5 minutes is tricky. Too short for much in the way of slides. Too long to just stand there and talk — you’ll forget stuff. I decided to go for the “pretty picture” school of slides, to keep me on track — but I wasn’t going to read my slides.
Afterwards, I received a very nice compliment from one of the other companies — “you were great! You were so natural and spontaneous!”. I was flattered. But my pitch was anything but spontaneous. It was very carefully crafted to sound spontaneous.
I’m aware of two ways to sound spontaneous and natural when pitching:
Be amazingly, magically spontaneous (some people do have this gift; I do not).
Do The Work. (with a nod to Steven Pressfield’s book)
Here’s my methodology to Do The Work for a five minute pitch.
Start 2 weeks ahead of time.
Pick a story narrative — what’s your angle on why you’re unique.
Outline your pitch in slide bullet points. Max 5 slides (my slide outline below).
Make slides with pictures and few words — like, use 32pt font.
Talk out loud — really — out loud — in your own words, for each of those items. Record it or write it down verbatim. Hone it so it’s short enough and you can say it without tripping over your tongue.
Every morning, for 2 weeks up to the event, spend 5 minutes and just read your notes out loud. Out loud. Not in your head. Out loud. Maybe record it. By the end of the first week, you probably won’t need your notes.
On day 0, you’ll sound natural and spontaneous and you won’t need to see your slides.
Here’s my 5 slides outline:
Why this vision/company/product/market. (in the spirit of “Start with Why”).
What is this thing? (what does the product do, focus on interesting/different)
The Business — how do you make money. Keep it simple.
The words for each of these slides should be 3–5 sentences, max. More and you’re out of time.
I think steps 5 and 6 are the key. People’s speaking voices and writing voices are different. Speaking out loud means your pitch is natural to how you speak, not how you write. Refine your words, boil it down so it fits in your time slot and you can say it out loud without tripping over your tongue.
One of the things you learn from playing an instrument is that a few minutes of practice a day is way better than 1 hour a week all at once. Harness this — just spend that 5–10 minutes in the morning when you are fresh and in a week the words will be stuck in your head.
Repetition and brevity are your friends. People can’t read your slides and you shouldn’t either. Convey the key points simply and clearly and they will fill in the details themselves.
When I was young, maybe 18, I visited my girlfriend (now wife)’s house. My father-in-law to be, a rather imposing and gruff former military officer, lets me in the house. At this time my now-wife and I had not been dating long, and I had hair down well-past my shoulders. So, you can imagine I was on thin ice (no pun intended!) with him. He led me into the kitchen, and I got “the question”.
No, not that one.
This question was, “Mark, do you want a Martini”?
I was, as I say, 18, and I think I’d had gin once and decided it was the vilest thing on the planet.
So of course, I said yes.
He reached into the freezer, pulled out a bottle of gin, poured some in a glass, and handed it to me.
Gulp.
Even at that early stage of my cocktail career, I was pretty sure there was supposed to be something else in the glass. Wanting to stay on his good side, I smiled and choked it down. Later, he explained that was what he called a “combat Martini” — when you couldn’t be bothered to fool around. The “in the freezer” part was optional, he explained. Now, who can forget “shaken, not stirred”? My father-in-law’s Martini was neither.
It’s been a long while since then, and I’ve encountered a lot of Martinis in my books and in my life.
Triggered by a friend’s text message (not the I’m-losing-it kind of triggered, just the it-reminds-me-of kind of triggered), I’m thinking of some of my favorite Martini stories, literary and otherwise. My quarantine drink of choice has become the Martini, very dry. I haven’t yet taken to calling it a Quarantini, but I might get there. By the way: there are a lot of Quarantine Book Clubs out there!
“Shaken, not stirred” made its first appearance in Ian Fleming’s 6th Bond novel, Dr. No. But of course, it was memorialized forever by Sean Connery. This advice is contrary to all textbook cocktail technique — Martinis, and any other cocktail with no fruit juice, is to be stirred, not shaken.
I was reminded of all this by my friend’s text message, reminding me of the advice from Kingsman, the Secret Service:
Martini, gin. Not vodka. Obviously, stirred for 10 seconds while glancing at an unopened bottle of vermouth.
To my now-adjusted tastes, this is how a dry Martini should be made. Gin, not Vodka. Perhaps, after first rinsing the glass with Vermouth and discarding it (the vermouth, not the glass). Reasonable people can differ about this, of course.
Speaking of Martini tricks, I must pass on a secret I learned from James Salter, the world’s best writer you never heard of. (I have not explained this to my father-in-law — I am afraid of what he will say). From Life is Meals, a non-fiction book Salter wrote with his wife:
“There is a final, unconventional secret. Shake a Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce bottle, then quickly remove the cap and with it, dash a faint smudge of the contents — far less than a drop — into the bottom of the shaker before beginning. It adds the faint, unidentifiable touch of greatness.”
Olives? I can take or leave them — if I have good ones, I like them. Dirty Martini? Heaven forbid. No, just, no.
Gin? Bombay Sapphire is my ideal. If on the expensive side. The Botanist is quite good, but even more expensive. Hendricks I find too floral, and yet again more expensive. Gordon’s gin, which will re-appear shortly as part of a Vesper, is quite inexpensive, and when very cold and combined with that magic ingredient mentioned above, is quite good.
Vermouth? Who are we kidding? We’re not going use it, except to rinse the glass. Any brand will do. My father-in-law’s Martini recipe, likely not original, requires no vermouth at all, it simply requires looking at the picture of the man who invented Vermouth, while you drink your gin. You really just want the idea of vermouth, not the reality. (As he’s aged, his Martini purity has relaxed just a bit — he is now taken to putting a few big cubes of ice in a glass and pouring his gin over….)
Salter wrote fiction, mostly (although his memoirs Burning the Days is one of my favorite books ever. The section where the young Salter learns about sex is priceless). His Light Years is a beautiful, heartbreaking work about the disintegration of a marriage, but contains this less-dark nugget about Martinis, and showcases the diamond-like prose Salter is known for:
“I think I’d like a martini,” Viri said. He drank one, icy cold, in a gleaming glass. It was like a change in the weather. The pitcher held another, potent, clear. “How do you make them so cold?” he asked. “Well, you happen to have commanded the drink which is, in my opinion, the one true test. You have to have the right ingredients — and also you keep the gin in the freezer.”
Made with care, the Martini might be the perfect cocktail. The author H. L. Mencken memorably described the Martini as ‘the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet’. He’s also the (possibly apocryphal) author of one of my favorite quotes about creative endeavors: “There are three rules for the writing of a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”. A good reminder that conformity to some imagined set of rules doesn’t lead to novel work.
Of course, it’s easy to overindulge in Martinis. Salter quotes the writer James Thurber in Life is Meals: “One is all right, two is too many, and three is not enough.” The satirist and writer Dorothy Parker’s famed quote also comes to mind:
I like to have a Martini, two at the very most; three, I’m under the table, four I’m under my host.
Is there is any character in literature more associated with Martinis than James Bond? It’s hard to imagine. In Casino Royale (the book), he invents one of my favorite variations: the Vesper.
”A Dry Martini”, he said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.” ”Oui, monsieur.” ”Just a moment. Three measures of Gordons, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemonpeel. Got it?”
However you make your Martinis, I hope you have a great book on hand to read along with it. Books are a great comfort in times like these — especially if you’re reading with a friend!
As for the proper Martini technique — here’s Bond’s latest take on “shaken, not stirred”. In Casino Royale (the movie), when faced with the inevitable question, he responds:
Bad news first. Good news is fun but there’s nothing actionable about it. Bad news, you can try to fix.
When you have to make a decision, think carefully, ask for opinions. Then make a decision and don’t change your mind. (Indecision is fatal in a leader)
Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.
Hire adrenaline junkies.
Rip off the bandaid.
Never make a decision until you have to. (My take on this, via Shogun, a master class in this).
Always carry on your bags; never take a connecting flight (wait – that’s two rules)
Never release on Fridays
Don’t fight the last war. (re: when we built goby, we focused on our website even as mobile was becoming ubiquitous)
“Your reputation is important and easily damaged, and people talk”.
Remember, you can always say “No”. Later. (ie. don’t close things off too soon – you don’t have to commit just because you take the meet or offer the phone call….).
“Hands and Feed Inside the Vehicle at all times.”. Enjoy the ride.
Next slide. “Great Launch! Next Slide”. (from my first post-launch goby board meeting, after I showed the celebratory slide in the board meeting. One of my board members said this almost as soon as I put up the slide. The point: be future-focused and keep driving for more.)
Paraphrasing Gibbs: When the Job’s Done, Walk Away. (when you step out of a job, don’t take another one for two months if you can help it. Your brain will change.)
Be (civil) In The Arena. (re: Roosevelt quote). The Arena is The Internet and Social Media. As a leader of your company, be present. Don’t be afraid to respond to your critics as well as your friends. But be civil. Flies, Honey, Vinegar, etc.
The three laws of email (with hat tip to Asimov’s three laws of robotics)
Never send email when you’re mad.
On the third reply, use the phone.
Reply All is not your friend.
Always close the loop on an intro. (if I introduce you to a VC, let me know how the meeting went. Who knows, I might have back door info….plus, it’s just polite).
Fred Wilson recently posted a great article entitled Don’t Kick the Can Down the Road. It exhorts entrepreneurs to not avoid making hard decisions. Great advice — and yet, sometimes you need the patience to let things develop, or not make a decision before you need to. (Ironically, many VCs — not necessarily Fred — are past masters at not making a decision, happily telling entrepreneurs “come back when you have more data” vs. just telling them no and getting it over with).
I recently read Shogun, James Clavell’s enormously entertaining and informative novel about set in feudal Japan. It is a master class in how patience is necessary to achieve big goals.
SOON TO BE AN FX LIMITED SERIES * A bold English adventurer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn between two ways of life. All brought together in an extraordinary saga aflame with passion, conflict, ambition, and the struggle for power.Here is the world-famous novel of Japan that is the earliest book in James Clavell’s masterly Asian saga.
Blackthorne is an English ship navigator marooned in Japan (loosely based on the exploits of the real historical figure William Adams, the first Englishman to reach Japan and the first western Samurai). He is made Samurai by lord Toranaga (a fictionalized version of the historical figure Tokugawa Ieyasu). The novel is ostensibly focused on Blackthorne but the true central figure of the book is Toranaga. Toranaga secretly desires to become Shogun, the supreme military commander of Japan, and de facto ruler of the country. But against him are an array of other leaders, with a stronger political position and bigger armies. Toranaga is the master of not making a decision until he has to, or the time is right:
though in reality it was only a cover to gain time, continuing his lifelong pattern of negotiation, delay, and seeming retreat, always waiting patiently until a chink in the armor appeared over a jugular, then stabbing home viciously, without hesitation.
or
“Doesn’t this explain Toranaga? Doesn’t this intrigue fit him like a skin? Isn’t he doing what he’s always doing, just waiting like always, playing for time like always, a day here a day there and soon a month has passed and again he has an overwhelming force to sweep all opposition aside? He’s gained almost a month since Zataki brought the summons to Yokose.”
In the end, it is all about patience, or as Toranaga says:
Patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don’t give way to the seven you are patient, then you’ll soon understand all manner of things…
If you’re building a business, you don’t have to raise venture capital. The tech press romanticize this path. You can bootstrap, but that requires patience (and resources or a very low burn rate). But if you are patient, passionate, and committed, you can build a very interesting company this way.
This strategy doesn’t lend itself well to fast-developing, winner-take-all markets. Competing with an Uber or a Groupon, you have to scale fast or get run over. In venture-backed companies, you are on the “shot clock” as soon as you take money — investors want a return. Conversely you become addicted to the funding and can’t survive without it, so you have to succeed quickly or you’ll run out of money.
In more slowly developing markets, or markets that are small enough that big money or big companies aren’t a threat, patience can be a virtue, or even a requirement. Books are an interesting example. The market develops slowly. The few major success stories, say Goodreads or Wattpad, were almost a decade in the making. Any number of innovative startups (e.g. discovery engine Small Demons, subscription reading platform Oyster) produced great products but were unable to fund operations long enough to achieve critical mass.
So, with my book discovery engine, The Hawaii Project, I’m playing the long game. I’m not raising funding and going for the big splash, because I know the market will take longer to develop than the shot clock will permit. I’m self funding. Cloud computing and open software have made it possible for a single person to build very interesting products, and let them run for long periods of time at very little cost. I can wait out the competition; most of them will run out of money.
When I meet with young entrepreneurs embarking on something, one of my first questions is, “Do you care enough about this problem to spend 5 or 10 years of your life on it?”. Because that is what it’s going to take.
