Lost and Founder (Penguin Books)

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.

This is not that story. Rand Fishkin, the founder and former CEO of Moz, is one of the world's leading experts on SEO. Moz is now a $45 million a year business, but Fishkin's business and reputation took 15 years to grow, and his startup began not in a Harvard dorm room but as a mother-and-son family business that fell deeply into debt.

Now Fishkin pulls back the curtain on tech startup mythology, exposing the ups and downs of startup life that most CEOs would rather keep secret. For instance: a minimally viable product can be destructive if you launch at the wrong moment.

Growth hacking may be the buzzword du jour, but initiatives to your business can fizzle quickly. Revenue and profitability won't protect you from layoffs. And venture capital always comes with strings attached.

In Lost and Founder Fishkin reveals the mostly awful, sometimes awesome truth about startup culture with the transparency and humour that his hundreds of thousands of blog readers have come to love. Fishkin's hard-won lessons are applicable to any kind of business environment and this book can help solve your problems, and make you feel less alone for having them.

'This is a truly courageous book.