It's told through honest and reflective recount on Rand Fishkin's own triumphs and, more importantly, failures building Moz - a leading company in field of SEO marketing with millions in revenu. If you're interested in any of the topics above, from decision-making, to management, to organizational culture or product management, read this book. I, for one, wouldn't have got to the realization of the importance of these elements, had I not experienced the pain resulting from neglecting them - clear values, mission and a clearly defined culture, just to name a few. The book introduced about the reality of what it really means to start your own business (mentally and financially), how VCs work, the maybe false beliefs in pivots and MVPs, what types of growth hacks work well, and more importantly to me, about what is important in building a great team.

This is not only a startup story but also a practical guide to marketing management based on genuine numbers and real names. This serves as an example of an exception to the adage that you want to build and invest in a company, not a product. That means if you’re after the big bucks, you’re probably better off working for a market leader than setting up your own company. In this book, he shares the true story of how he successfully started Moz and then at some point failed with its growth, why he recently left the company, and what he learnt during these 16 years. These may be valuable regardless of where you are in your founder journey - assuming you are on the brink of bringing in external capital or at least consider it.

Having employees on board with different backgrounds and skills provides a greater range of expert opinions and insights.

Everyone knows how a startup story is supposed to go: A young, brilliant entrepreneur has an cool idea, drops out of college, defies the doubters, overcomes all odds, makes billions, and becomes the envy of the technology world. Rand, provides you with a very honest trip through his time as Founder, CEO and Individual Contributor (IC) at Moz.You might want silent partners with deep pockets, but you can be sure your investors won’t see it quite like that. Rand does a great job of providing a balanced view of the advantages and disadvantages of taking VC money and forces you to think differently and consider other options. He created roles like 'Product Architect', 'Subject Matter Expert', and so forth to keep top people.