When Mike was putting together the Sonicbids Summer Reading blog series I sent about a dozen suggestions. Most were artist biographies or other tales of the recording industry but I also included The Facebook Effect by David Kirkpatrick (senior editor for internet and technology at Fortune).
You might be wondering why a book about a website is a good read for a musician? While it might not be directly applicable many of the challenges a startup faces are similar to bands. Both bands and startups need to find the right people to work with, create something cool and figure out how to get people to pay attention to it.
Here's how I translate some of the useful bits of information:
"Making Facebook fun was more important than making it a business."
TRANSLATION: Making your music good is more important than figuring out how to make money with it. You need to have a good product before anything else will fall into place.
In Facebook's early days they wouldn't let students from a school create accounts until 20% of the school's student body signed up for a waiting list. "By keeping the gates closed and only opening schools once there was proven demand, Zukerberg ensured that when Facebook did open, usage would explode."
TRANSLATION: You might be better off playing small venues you can sell out rather than bigger (& likely more prestigious) venues that aren't full. Even if you sell more tickets at the bigger venues, the sell out shows will create a bigger buzz (and also encourage those that missed out to buy tickets in advance next time).
Also, don't confuse The Facebook Effect with a different book about Facebook called The Accidental Billionaires. Accidental Billionaires is more of a dramatized account and was the basis of the movie The Social Network whereas The Facebook Effect sticks to the facts a bit more.
Lou
PS - I will now ironically ask you to Follow Me On Twitter ; )
