I'm terrified and excited that my third novel, Exit Strategy, comes out today. It's the conclusion to The Uncommon Series, a tech startup thriller trilogy that follows Mara Winkel and her best friend James Chen as they drop out of college to start a startup and end up getting sucked into an international conspiracy along the way.
The books are distributed to every Techstars founder and I've been humbled by the feedback we've received from folks like @bfeld, @micah, @davidcohen, @daniellemorrill, and so many others. Organic word-of-mouth has sent them to #1 in their category on Amazon and we've tried to think like scrappy entrepreneurs in how we share the story: we serialized the entire first book and posted it on Medium, the fictional protagonist has penned opeds and done interviews for tech publications, and Foundry Group even syndicated the fictional startup's Series B financing.
I started writing the book because I thought that fiction could provide a special window into the minds and hearts of entrepreneurs. Over the course of writing it, I learned an enormous amount about not only the process of bringing a tech company all the way to IPO but also how vulnerable our public and financial institutions are. For example, the United Nations estimates that organized crime brings in $2 trillion a year in profits and that the black market represents 15-20% of global GDP. The antagonists behind these dark trends are what turned this story into a page-turner.
Looking forward to hearing what you think, you can find the full Uncommon Series here: http://www.amazon.com/Eliot-Pepe...
The @producthunt team was kind enough to invite me to do an AMA next Tuesday and I can't wait to field your questions. They have an incredible list of authors coming up that you can check out here: http://www.producthunt.com/books...
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@eliotpeper Congratulations on completing the trilogy! It seems like your research paid dividends, an often-overlooked aspect of fiction writing!
Adding to my fiction collection :)
@decision_ research can add an enormous amount to fiction. To inform The Uncommon Series, I interviewed tech CEOs who have taken multiple companies public, major venture investors, federal special agents, and money laundering experts. If you like those kind of stories, I've heard that Don Winslow's The Cartel is a deeply researched novel about Mexican drug violence, @hueypriest hunted it earlier today.
"Exit Strategy" is absolutely awesome. Eliot really captured what it is to be an entrepreneur and a CEO, and rolled it inside an exciting thriller. I can only say 'Bravo.'
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