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With great fanfare came great expectations. On the heels of the forum gathering this spring, a lot of trusted posters here were talking about Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson. So I picked it up.
I made it through the first several chapters before I put it down, never to return to it.
Let me say that
1. Masterson is smarter than me and
2. Masterson has built larger businesses than me and as a result
3. Masterson is richer than me
So, if that is your criteria for validation, the rest of what I have to say might not be worth much to you. I told @AllenCrawley when he aptly pointed out why I had a visceral reaction to Masterson that my posting about it on the forum was likely to draw some friendly fire. So be it.
Here's my problem with Ready, Fire, Aim.
99.9% of the people on this forum, including me, couldn't follow what he has laid out as a "blueprint" to take you from $0 to $100,000,000. You can't do it. It's billed as a road-map, but it is going to lead you to a dead end.
Why?
Masterson's reitterated premise is that his companies operate from $0 to $1,000,000 at a loss.
Stop there.
That's his first step.
So... before we move past first base, in order to score, can you do that?
He doesn't articulate in his book how you do that. How HE does that is he has people willing to throw money at him. He uses OPM (Other People's Money) or now he could finance it himself. His companies take between a year to five years to reach a million dollars. That means, he spends a year to five years... operating at a loss. Can you?
Most of the people and success stories from thefastlaneforum.com are self starters, that broke free of the corporate grind by out-thinking, outworking/out-hustling, and surviving the startup bootstrap phases to create value where a void existed in the market.
Masterson's book reminds me of the tongue-in-cheek way to retire a millionaire.
Step 1. Start with a million dollars
If you can go out and get angel funding or VC funding for a pre-launch company, than his road-map would likely work perfectly. I couldn't get past the fact that his "how to" book was marketed to the masses, and yet his road-map is passing through the eye of a needle.
A few months back, I contacted him on behalf of the forum with an invitation to do an AMA here, and received no response. There is still an open invitation (and a lot of fan boys) waiting for him here if he would like to take us up on the invitation.
His book likely has a ton of solid advice, actionable inspiration on topics such as systems, infrastructure and strategy. You can still gain value from it, like a lot of other books where you cull the wheat from the chaff and take what usable insight you can gain from it. He's smarter than I am, and his books are worth reading.
And, I wasn't looking for a step by step road map for how to build a business, even though the subhead of his book is "from $0 to $100m..." but since he presented his material as a replicatable, specific treasure map that any leprechaun could follow to the pot of gold at the end, I stopped reading his book a few chapters in when I determined that too many leprechauns likely died trying to follow his Oregon Trail.
Flame away.
I made it through the first several chapters before I put it down, never to return to it.
Let me say that
1. Masterson is smarter than me and
2. Masterson has built larger businesses than me and as a result
3. Masterson is richer than me
So, if that is your criteria for validation, the rest of what I have to say might not be worth much to you. I told @AllenCrawley when he aptly pointed out why I had a visceral reaction to Masterson that my posting about it on the forum was likely to draw some friendly fire. So be it.
Here's my problem with Ready, Fire, Aim.
99.9% of the people on this forum, including me, couldn't follow what he has laid out as a "blueprint" to take you from $0 to $100,000,000. You can't do it. It's billed as a road-map, but it is going to lead you to a dead end.
Why?
Masterson's reitterated premise is that his companies operate from $0 to $1,000,000 at a loss.
Stop there.
That's his first step.
So... before we move past first base, in order to score, can you do that?
He doesn't articulate in his book how you do that. How HE does that is he has people willing to throw money at him. He uses OPM (Other People's Money) or now he could finance it himself. His companies take between a year to five years to reach a million dollars. That means, he spends a year to five years... operating at a loss. Can you?
Most of the people and success stories from thefastlaneforum.com are self starters, that broke free of the corporate grind by out-thinking, outworking/out-hustling, and surviving the startup bootstrap phases to create value where a void existed in the market.
Masterson's book reminds me of the tongue-in-cheek way to retire a millionaire.
Step 1. Start with a million dollars
If you can go out and get angel funding or VC funding for a pre-launch company, than his road-map would likely work perfectly. I couldn't get past the fact that his "how to" book was marketed to the masses, and yet his road-map is passing through the eye of a needle.
A few months back, I contacted him on behalf of the forum with an invitation to do an AMA here, and received no response. There is still an open invitation (and a lot of fan boys) waiting for him here if he would like to take us up on the invitation.
His book likely has a ton of solid advice, actionable inspiration on topics such as systems, infrastructure and strategy. You can still gain value from it, like a lot of other books where you cull the wheat from the chaff and take what usable insight you can gain from it. He's smarter than I am, and his books are worth reading.
And, I wasn't looking for a step by step road map for how to build a business, even though the subhead of his book is "from $0 to $100m..." but since he presented his material as a replicatable, specific treasure map that any leprechaun could follow to the pot of gold at the end, I stopped reading his book a few chapters in when I determined that too many leprechauns likely died trying to follow his Oregon Trail.
Flame away.
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