Originally published: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. This edition has a new preface
"New York times & Wall Street journal bestseller"--Cover

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- The call. Be open to ideas ; Is it dangerous or just scary? ; Leave your safety zone... but do it safely ; Do your research ; Find your co-founder ; Fund the business, part 1: Bootstrapping ; Get your story straight ; Fund your business, part 2: Other people's money ; Iterate, iterate, iterate -- The test(s). Go in through the side door ; It's all about location ; Get attention, part 1: Building buzz ; Get attention, part 2: Engineering word of mouth ; Survive the crucible ; Fund the business, part 3: Professional money ; Protect what you've built ; When catastrophe strikes ; The art of the pivot -- The destination. It can't be all about the money ; Build a culture, not a cult ; Think small to get big ; Manage partnership tensions ; Know thyself ; When to sell and when to stay ; Be kind ; What you do with your luck -- Afterword.

"Great ideas often come from a simple spark: A soccer player on the New Zealand national team notices all the unused wool his country produces and figures out a way to turn them into shoes (Allbirds). A former Buddhist monk decides the very best way to spread his mindfulness teachings is by launching an app (Headspace). A sandwich cart vendor finds a way to reuse leftover pita bread and turns it into a multimillion-dollar business (Stacy's Pita Chips). Award-winning journalist and NPR host Guy Raz has interviewed more than two-hundred highly successful entrepreneurs to uncover amazing true stories like these. In How I Built This, he shares tips for every entrepreneur's journey: from the early days of formulating your idea, to raising money and recruiting employees, to fending off competitors, to finally paying yourself a real salary. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of starting their own business or wondered how trailblazing entrepreneurs made their own dreams a reality."-- publisher website.