Guy Kawasaki On Startups, Entrepreneurship And The State Of Social Media

One of Guy Kawasaki’s recurring pieces of advice to entrepreneurs is to create a mantra, not a mission statement.

A mantra is three or four words that captures the essence of your organization e.g. Wendy’s: healthy fast food or FedEx: peace of mind.

Guy even created a helpful mantra that sums up his career as the chief evangelist at Apple, now chief evangelist at Canva, a venture capitalist, an advisor, a brand ambassador, a speaker and an author: empowering entrepreneurs.

Guy’s advice isn’t specific to tech startups, or even startups broadly speaking. I have personally recommended Art of the Start to people launching everything from startups to non-profits, podcasts, bands and books.

Over the past week or so, Guy was nice enough to give me some of his time to chat and answer a few questions about the startup ecosystem, entrepreneurship and the state of social media. What follows is our unedited exchange.