Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Start Small, Stay Small

  • A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup
  • By: Rob Walling
  • Narrated by: Rob Walling
  • Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (23 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Start Small, Stay Small cover art

Start Small, Stay Small

By: Rob Walling
Narrated by: Rob Walling
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £11.99

Buy Now for £11.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The SaaS Playbook cover art
The Mom Test cover art
Affiliate Marketing: A Complete Step by Step Guide to Build Your Own $100,000 Online Business cover art
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together cover art
Online Business from Scratch cover art
Zero to Sold cover art
Affiliate Marketing: Develop an Online Business Empire and Make Passive Income Online cover art
$100M Offers cover art
Built to Sell cover art
$100M Leads cover art
Continuous Discovery Habits cover art
Obviously Awesome cover art
Rework cover art
Affiliate Marketing: Use Blogging and Affiliate Marketing to Generative Passive Income Online and Turn Your Hobby into a Full Time Business cover art
Dictation: Dictate Your Writing cover art
Social Media Marketing cover art

Summary

Start Small, Stay Small is a step-by-step guide to launching a self-funded start-up. If you're a desktop, mobile, or web developer, this audiobook is your blueprint to getting your start-up off the ground with no outside investment. This audiobook intentionally avoids topics restricted to venture-backed start-ups such as: honing your investment pitch, securing funding, and figuring out how to use the piles of cash investors keep placing in your lap. 

This audiobook assumes:  

  • You don't have six million dollars of investor funds sitting in your bank account
  • You're not going to relocate to the handful of start-up hubs in the world
  • You're not going to work 70-hour weeks for low pay with the hope of someday making millions from stock options

There's nothing wrong with pursuing venture funding and attempting to grow fast like Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Facebook. It just so happens that most people are not in a place to do this. Start Small, Stay Small also focuses on the single most important element of a start-up that most developers avoid: marketing. There are many great resources for learning how to write code, organize source control, or connect to a database. This audiobook does not cover the technical aspects developers already know or can learn elsewhere. It focuses on finding your idea, testing it before you build, and getting it into the hands of your customers.

©2010 Robert Walling (P)2010 Robert Walling

More from the same

What listeners say about Start Small, Stay Small

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    14
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    13
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Excellent book but outdated

The author claims this book is full of practical information without padded content. I would support they claim and the information density feels indeed very high.

The content itself is really good and useful and did deliver on the title, many things were discussed which I did not think about but have now adopted (in particular on market research). However, the information feels at times dated and most links (at least the ones I tried) seemed to be non existing anymore. The author refers to MySpace and magazine advertisements which feels out of touch for today's market. The tool the author uses for market research does not exist anymore (?!) so it was somewhat difficult to find something similar but I did eventually and I feel I'm making a much better informed decision about my potential markets now.

Overall, I would still recommend it, seo tools have moved on and changed, but there is a wealth of information that you will not find elsewhere, and there are really good ballpark estimates which will help check if a software project is viable or not.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great insight but a bit old

This book gives great insight into how rob thinks about building products and his process for launching and maintaining them. I didn’t realise this book was originally published in 2010 as the audiobook was published in 2018 it’s a bit outdated and could use and updated version, Rob?

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great guide, if a bit dated

The book is incredibly dense in useful information. Rob mentions a ton of resources and cites hourly wage ranges from back when the book was authored - that part is partially outdated, but does not take away from the core message. I wish he'd release a second updated edition!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Old but still worth it

While lots of the figures are outdated they show how things have changed in 2023 such as valuations. The techniques discussed are still completely valid

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A bit outdated, but very inspiring

Most of the links and ideas are outdated, but still, there's a lot of relevant knowledge here if you don't know where to start to build your first startup business. Rob's reading is also great, his voice reminds me a bit of Jeffrey Way's :) I would love to have an updated version of this book, but I don't think that will ever happen. But as I said it's still worth the attention and must be part of your library of business books.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!