Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook

What avoidable problem destroys more young startups than any other?

Why is it a mistake to ask for introductions to investors?

When do you play the CEO card?

Should you sell out?

Author and four-time founder/CEO Dan Shapiro tells the stories of dozens of startups whose companies lived and died by the advice in these pages. From inception to destruction and triumph to despair, this rollercoaster read takes aspiring entrepreneurs from the highs of billion-dollar payouts and market-smashing success to the depths of impostor syndrome and bankruptcy.

Hot Seat is divided into the five phases of the startup CEO experience:

• Founding explains how to formulate your idea, allocate equity, and not argue yourself to death
• Funding provides the keys to venture capital, angels, and crowdfunding, plus clear advice on which approach to choose
• Leadership lays out a path to build a strategy and culture for your team that will survive good times and bad
• Management reveals how to manage your board, argue with your team, and play the CEO card
• Endgame explains how to finish a company's existence with grace, wealth, and minimal litigation

Dan Shapiro is the CEO and cofounder of Glowforge, a startup that's creating the first 3D laser printer. Dan's also the primary turtle wrangler at Robot Turtles, LLC, a company created when he accidentally launched the bestselling boardgame in Kickstarter history. Dan spent the previous two years leading a Google subsidiary that operates comparison shopping products. Shapiro landed at Google when they bought his previous company, comparison shopping website Sparkbuy. Before Sparkbuy, Shapiro was founder and CEO of Photobucket Inc. (formerly Ontela).

Dan's been featured on NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and on the front page of the New York Times. His game, Robot Turtles, can be purchased everywhere from Target to MOMA. He is a mentor for the Founder's Institute, 500 Startups, and Techstars. He has been awarded eleven US patents, and received his B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.