Written by Emily Fogarty

At Part and Sum we believe that innovation is fueled by exposure to new ideas. That’s why we’re pleased to announce our bi-annual book club for business owners, marketers and other industry leaders.

Every six months we’ll share a relevant, thought-provoking book that we’ve read and discussed here at P+S HQ. We’ll also share our key takeaways -- the facts, stats and insights that resonated most -- in a handy feature we call Part and Summed Up, just in case life gets too hectic to work through the pile of stuff you want to read.

Our first selection is *Lost and Founder* by Rand Fishkin. Rand started the SEOmoz blog at the age of 25 and grew it into Moz.com—one of our favorite SEO marketing platforms. Today Moz is valued at $120 million with $40 million in annual revenue. His book part memoir, part essential start-up life lessons from almost two decades of starting and running Moz. Filled with strategy and brought to life with real-world anecdotes, we think it’s a must-read for anyone who wants practical (and human!) insight into the world of entrepreneurship.

Lost and Founder: Part and Summed Up

• Transparency and radical candor are essential in modern businesses (chapter 1).
• Venture capital can be a dangerous game. Be careful of the misaligned incentives between venture capitalists and founders (chapter 6).
• Growth hacking is fine, but only sustainable as the first part of your unique marketing flywheel (chapter 9).
• Great products are rarely minimally viable (chapter 12).
• Management shouldn’t be the only way up for exceptional employees (chapter 14).
• The great strength of startups is they can uniquely focus on one thing and iterate quickly. Don’t lose this focus with bloated product offerings and bloated teams (chapter 17).

Happy reading, and stay tuned for our next book club pick, coming your way in Spring 2019.

If you’re a business owner or industry leader and want to join our book club let us know - [email protected].