“It’s not easy to openly share your own failures. Arnaud writes about his journey in such a compelling and honest way that he gives the rest of us permission to do the same.”
“How Hard Can It Be is a real page-turner of a book – a fascinating and highly readable account of all the trials, tribulations, pivots, reversals and assorted near disasters involved in launching and monetizing a startup business.”
“Arnaud captures the emotional roller-coaster of a startup entrepreneurial journey. No amount of “how-to” guides can truly prepare founders for the turbulence, anguish, elation and surprise – all in single day. His personal story brings this to life vividly.”
“In this intimately personal account, the author takes us on a journey through the birth and death of a dream. ‘How Hard Can It Be’ is more than a story of a business venture, it reveals the complexities and messiness of what it means to be human in an enchantingly honest way. A must-read for budding entrepreneurs as well as people interested in life, love and learning.”
“Arnaud has managed to convert his entrepreneurial story into a page turner full of lessons. Get ready to learn about the real day to day of startup life.”
“Failure. It’s something that we all try to avoid, yet experience nonetheless. How Hard Can It Be is a book that finally brings failure to the surface, to dissect, examine, and learn from. If you want some clues on how to best metabolize failure – read this book!”
“It takes a lot of courage to share a failure story. Arnaud has done that in great detail. The price he has paid for that failure has turned into a book as a present for you filled with lessons to learn, and more importantly, mistakes to avoid.”
“Learning is the only way to turn failure into success. Arnaud’s story of the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial adventure is full of lessons. He does not glorify failure but treats it with the respect a good teacher deserves. His narrative style is a refreshing new approach to the tired management genre”.
“In professing his failure in a most personal manner, Arnaud asks us to consider why, when the vast majority of startups fail, so few accounts of failing are available. With so much to learn from failing, maybe, just maybe, the time for more failures to step forward and share their experience is upon us.”
The startup stories we are all familiar with tend to end with an oversubscribed IPO and millions of dollars for the founders. You know the drill; the side-hustle, the Unicorns and the rest of it.
But if it was that easy, would not the ever-growing torrent of inspirational stories and the ton of how-to books that flood the internet and fill the self-help sections of bookstores have lead to a lot more ‘successes’? But, here is the thing; numbers don’t lie.
Today, nine startups out of ten fail. That’s right. Irrespective of a startup team’s ideas, talent, funding, hard work or milestones achieved along the way, only 10% of startups make it past the ten years mark.
It is this realization that led me to conclude that to improve the probability of entrepreneurs succeeding, we need less improbable tales of ‘success’ and more real-world startup stories.
How Hard Can It Be compiles well over a decade worth of learnings from startup and scaleup experiences. But How Hard Can It Be is not your typical ‘5 Hacks to Making Zillions after hours’. Instead, it is the behind-the-scenes account of what it really takes to run a tech startup. In reading How Hard Can It Be, my goal is to prepare you for the rough ride that the startup journey is.
In How Hard Can It Be, you will learn (amongst other things):
The Best ‘Beast mode’ Book I’ve Read
Everyone usually talks about how successful they are in the startup world. This book takes it from another angle and is more honest and personal than the usual success handbooks. Excellent read about how great passion for your business/product idea get you into ‘beast mode’ where everything is possible. The book is a great coaching session for how to avoid common pitfalls when scaling up a SaaS-business. Especially a good read for anyone in C-level, marketing, sales, or customer success roles in SaaS-companies.
Practical, relatable and solid advice!
A really great read! This book answers the question in the title with honesty and shows the lessons in failure. Highly recommend to anyone looking to launch a start up or pitch their business
Original account of how to launch a tech company
There are plenty of books that try to offer entrepreneur secrets, but never have I read one with such a fresh and original perspective. The author chooses to go through the road less traveled and offers invaluable lessons on the many things that could result in failures and that are not obvious at all when businesses are set in motion. An engaging and entertaining read that makes you feel as if you are there with the team through all the steps of their journey. A must read to everyone who is or trying to be in the business of launching a tech company.
Entertaining and fast paced story of how to build a startup
How hard can it be to build that multi-million startup that will change the world? This book provides a highly entertaining, personal narrative of what to do – or rather what not do – when you set out to fulfill your entrepreneurial dream – or as the author meant to do – take down Facebook and build the next big social network tech platform. If you are interested in learning about how to launch a start up, want to avoid the many pitfalls and failures that many encounter and you enjoy a personal, engaging account which keeps you running through the book in no time, this is the book for you.
Enjoy!
Strong read
This is an informative, interesting and well written read. If you are on acquainted with the start up culture, hold onto your hats because this is a great ride.
An Insider Story With Literary Qualities
The book takes us through the journey of of a tech entrepreneur and his team. It covers many ups and downs as they try out different business models, go through incubator programmes, attract angel investors and VC capital. The book does a really good job of showing how little that separates failure from success. It is an engaging story with lots of insights. The key characters are vividly described and I read with genuine interest to see how it goes. Warmly recommended!
Fun read challenging conventional ideas of success and failure
Conventional ideas of success and failure upside down. The author takes us on an enjoyable insiders journey as a tech start up entrepreneur, and he manages to glean life lessons along the way in a most humorous and insightful way.
Your personal roadmap to entrepreneurship
This book is a personal journey that will lead you on the highs and lows and teach you how to scale your business…I highly recommend it
Refreshingly honest
Love this book. Refreshing and personal perspective to failure and lessons. Good takeaways on pitching your company and how to launch and true enterprise collaboration. A real page turner.
Most relevant first person experience
Just the kind of books I like to read: to the point, easy to read, first person story. Must read for everyone who is in, or thinks of embarking a startup project. In this position, you do not think obvious that someone else has had the exact same problems/concerns/questions before you, that shared experience is very precious!
Is the fat lady singing, or is she still waiting in the wings?
This may be about lessons in failing but it’s far from being a failure itself. Not only is this a really good book about how to launch a startup, or how to launch a tech company, it’s a romping good story in its own right. The author takes us with him and his team on their journey; the highs, the lows, the smoke and the mirrors. We share their joys and we feel their pain every time that fat lady threatens to break into song. We are always advised to learn from our failures – but surely it’s better to learn from someone else’s? This book gives the reader the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Honest, well-written and very useful account of launching a tech startup
The ups and downs of entrepreneurship and launching a tech company. Well written, informative and at times also very amusing. Henneville-Wedholm tells it like it really is, giving a very honest account of 10 years of trying to “take down Facebook”. A useful guide for avoiding failure that should be a must-read for everyone trying to launch a startup.
A must-read for startups
It is really hard nowadays to find honest authors in business who are relatable and real. Arnaud approaches entrepreneurship and his failures with grace. His story rings true to anyone who has ever tried their hand at a startup. The lessons he learned and how he approached each challenge are not only relatable but actionable. I would recommend this book for business owners or anyone looking for a great read in business.
A Must Read For Entrepreneurs
Everyone interested in social media today should read this first person account of what it takes to ideate, launch and stay in the race in the crazy social media landscape. Whether you’re the next Zuckerberg or an instagram influencer, this book has lessons for you.
The book is fast to read, honest and funny, and tells the whole story of one of Sweden’s most personable entrepreneurs. Read it, and you’ll gain years of hard won experience.
The value of being honest
A concise and succinct account of how to learn from a project that didn’t pan out the way the author had planned, “How hard can it be”, stands out thanks to the author’s willingness to be honest about why he wasn’t able to “take down Facebook”. By blending his entrepreneurial journey with his personal story, the writer enables the reader to relate to both the ingenuity of his original ideas, his efforts to assemble a team, and ultimately, to his inability to reap the fruits of his endeavor. It takes skill and strength to be honest about such a journey, and up-and-coming entrepreneurs have every to be thankful for his candor, which will no doubt prove invaluable to others that want to challenge the status-quo.
Such a great read!
I read this engaging book during a couple of days. This book brought me insights, reflections and recognition. And a some laughs 🙂 The author tell a start-up story in a detailed and very transparent way, I couldn’t leave he book until the last page.
A thrilling book
The author draws you in from the very first page with his tale of incomparable will and determination. Anyone with an entrepreneurial spirit will find invaluable lessons within this book.
Great Life Lessons Of A Startup-Entrepreneur
Although it being a book about 100% entrepreneurship lessons and failure, it reads like a novel! The traveled road from idea to action, the drive and thrive, the energy between the people involved, every & maybe most important aspect of entrepreneurship – being human – is so recognizable!
Finally a Book Like This!
Wow. I lost count on the number of recognition factors after the first chapter. It was like someone else was telling my story but had gone to the extremes in replacing names, circumstances etc to hide the connection. Before reading “How Hard Can It Be” I knew entrepreneurial journeys had similarities in them. After finishing reading I’m angry at the whole startup world, including myself, for not sharing our failures – or let me rephrase that – for only sharing our failures after we’ve made it big. Which means a very few selected of us = the 10%, whilst the 90% get lost in the knowledge trashcan. That’s indeed a unicorn graveyard. Thank you Arnaud!
Ps. “How Hard Can It Be” should be a mandatory read for all college students out there majoring in business/entrepreneurship/management.
An Entrepreneur Must Read!
This book was entertaining, and all business at the same time. As an entrepreneur it reflected the journey of a startup in a way that we often don’t talk about. The process, mindset, difficulties, need and ability to pivot. It’s a must read for all entrepreneurs starting out on a venture!
A very important book…
How hard can it be is an excellent book. I really appreciate the honesty of it. So many people brag about their achievements but the author of this book is very honest about the hardship and difficulties of starting up a new business. I believe this book holds important lessons for anyone interested in entrepreneurship.
A Real Page Turner
Beyond being an interesting book that you will struggle to put down, this is simply ‘a must read book’ for anyone who thinks about starting a company or who is already an entrepreneur. It is packed with valuable lessons so that you can avoid the all so common mistakes. I wish that this book was written 10 years ago and that I had read it before I failed my own start-up.
Hilarious Lessons from Failure
So refreshing to read an uncanny story of all the missteps and recoveries in building a startup business and eventually failing. The valuable lessons learned is saved to others embarking on that kind of adventure. The storytelling style adds to it being an easy and enjoyable read. I was not even thinking about that I was actually reading a management book and actually laughed out loud, something that I rarely do otherwise. 🙂
Photo Magnus Sundelin @magnus.sundelin
Arnaud Henneville-Wedholm is an entrepreneur, author and possibilist. Today, he leads sales at Furhat Robotics a company known for its most advanced social robot. He is a board advisor to HealthPhy, a physiotherapy-on-demand app.
Arnaud is the founder of multiple startups, including internalDesk, a SaaS platform for enterprise collaboration. internalDesk was recognized as one of the ‘top10 tech rising stars’ in the Nordics in 2014 and was acquired in 2019. Arnaud’s interest areas include entrepreneurship, neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy and everything related to mindset and longevity. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden with his wife and three children.
Jason Sharman, serial entrepreneur and host of the popular ‘Strap on your boots’ podcast and Arnaud discuss… (in English)
(Click here to enjoy the full episode)
Sofia Wingren and Filip Strömbäck, hosts of the popular Swedish podcast ‘Rat Race’ sit down with Arnaud… (in English)
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John Livesay, keynote speaker, sales expert and multiple times author sits down with Arnaud…
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Mark Coopersmith professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the UC Berkeley and bestselling author of “The Other ‘F’ Word has a chat with Arnaud…
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Stephan K. Thieringen, host of the Raw Rants podcast, sits down with Arnaud. They cover quite a few topics…
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