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Book-Talk: Turgay Birand, Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of EditionGuard

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Turgay Birand is a serial entrepreneur and has been for his entire professional life – he never had a full-time job (although he did have multiple bosses at one point, while working as a contractor).

In 2012, Turgay founded EditionGuard, a web based service that provides a secure and cost-effective way to sell eBooks online. He started this platform due to popular demand received from eBook publishers and authors, wanting to solve the problems of secure delivery, content integrity and costly web integrations.

It’s currently used by publishers, university presses, governments and enterprises in over 40 countries, and helped deliver close to a million books since it was launched.

Turgay is also working on a side project called Zask, that was recently released in public beta. Zask is an app that combines the concepts of task management and time tracking (for all you productivity geeks out there!).

Find out from our interview more about his favorite books, how they changed the way he looks at entrepreneurship, his reading habits and how he chooses what to read next.

 

What’s your favorite book and why? Business and non-business, if possible.

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss is my favorite book for both business and non-business, because it triggered a very important idea about life; we have a finite amount of time in life and we should be very selective about what we spend it on. We shouldn’t be working all the time and in fact, we should deliberately be working with the aim to claim more time for ourselves to spend on whatever we wish!

 

Was there a moment, specifically, when something you read in a book helped you? Can you tell me about it?

I can’t really remember any such moments unfortunately.

 

What books had the biggest impact on you? (perhaps changed the way you see things, dramatically changed your career path)

The Fastlane Millionaire by MJ Demarco. It completely changed the way I look at entrepreneurship and the criteria for a successful business.

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What books would you recommend to youngsters interested in your professional path? Why? (no number limit here)

* The Fastlane Millionaire by MJ Demarco for a great framework to evaluate business ideas and
* The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris to focus on the bigger picture, our lives and our time
* Built to Sell is great for entrepreneurs to start thinking about how to have a business that can run without them from the get go, which should be the aim!
* Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling is good for getting some actionable tactics towards building and selling software products

 

I’m interested in finding out more about your reading habits. How often do you read? In what format?

I usually try to read for at least 15 minutes before bed. I like to use the Kindle mostly as it’s lightweight and has many options ready to go anytime. I usually read a lot more during the day for research on my iPad and MacBook. When going from place to place I also enjoy audiobooks that are lighter on content.

 

How do you make time for reading?

Allocate and block time for reading on your calendar and daily task list. I automate and delegate lots of my work wherever and whenever possible to claim time too!

 

How do you choose what books to read next?

Life usually directs me towards a challenge and the answer is almost always found delving into books. I always look at Amazon reviews too before buying them.

 

Last question: what book are you currently reading and what are you expecting to gain from it?

I’m reading “The Sales Acceleration Formula” which is a great book for building a sales force for software entrepreneurs.

Links where you can follow Turgay Birand or find out more about his projects:

Books mentioned by Turgay in this interview:

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