My Start-Up Life
What were you doing at age 12? My guess is that you were feeling a bit like Gregor Samsa as zits riddled your face and your once barren under arms started sprouting patches of fuzz. I imagine you were also a bit confused as to why you no longer thought the opposite sex would transmit diseases simply by poking you in the back or pulling your hair. All of the sudden you had a crush on little Wanda or wanted to meet Studly Sonny behind the dumpster to sneak a peck on the cheek. Maybe you were even gearing yourself up for Mr. Hettiger's 7th grade health class, where he featured classic episodes of the Canadian teen drama, Degrassi Junior High, to begin discussions about the issues we all suddenly faced as teens and pre-teens (which was, BTW, totally awesome). Or maybe still your young mind was trying to comprehend why, for the love of Frank, it suddenly became acceptable to where Zubaz....in public (check out the link for sheer hilarity)!!!
Whatever your pre-teen life looked like, I'm guessing it wasn't anything like the life that Ben Casnocha was building. While most of us were awkward, gangly little whipper-snappers asking even more awkward questions of our elders - watching their faces contort with discomfort as they chose their words carefully - Ben was, you know, helping his city government communicate with constituents. Four years later, AT AGE 16, he was nominated for Inc. Magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year." You can read all about it, and a whole lot more in his new book, My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley.
Right of the bat, this book oozes Ben's unquenchable thirst for knowledge, understanding, and growth. This is BY NO MEANS a get rich quick book or some kind of "Be Like Mikey" and become a childhood CEO type story. Sure, Casnocha was so greatly influenced by a "Think Different" ad that when given the homework assignment of "build a website".....wait a minute...12 year-olds build web sites as homework assignments??? When did this start happening? Wow! Anyways, Ben decided to take that assignment and instead start a company. But the point is that he was so smart beyond his age that he very quickly realized that he wasn't really that smart; he needed all the guidance and advice he could gather, and that is exactly what he did.
I'm continually fighting the urge to call Ben a kid. Why? Because even though he is a kid by a lot of standards, this book goes well beyond the coming of age problems Ben faced. His ups and downs faced while building companies are the same issues all entrepreneurs (and all companies) face. Cash flow, people, recourses, the will to trudge forward, etc. When it comes right down to it, this book should help everyone realize that if you want to get somewhere, you have to continuously battle through sticky situations with an undying desire to learn, willingness to teach yourself, eagerness to find new information, an egoless disposition that makes it easy to ask for help when you need it, and on a very basic level, how to continue putting one foot in front of the other.
On a lighter note, Ben is definitely a precocious teenager whose story will not only give you inspiration, but will make you spit coffee if you are not careful. For such a young writer, you wouldn't expect the entertainment level of the book to be so high. But it is.
I ask that if you have any doubts about Ben's age, please get rid of them, NOW! There's a lot to learn in this book. There's a lot to love about this story. There's even more to the messages within the story. Dig in!
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