The book is mainly about building a business that sits in the background making a dependable but not necessarily huge income. It's not really surprising that it's popular with internet marketers because they generally are not concerned about the quality of products they are producing, more about if they sell and make money. Tim's example was selling supplements online, do you think he was really passionate about this business? I doubt it but that's kind of the point of the book, focusing on enjoying a lifestyle rather than your work.
For people wanting to create an internet site/service of value and are really passionate about technology and the internet and enjoy focusing a lot of time on that then this probably isn't a good book to read.
On the other hand, is it necessarily bad to follow the techniques in the book to create a steady revenue stream (even if it's just enough to cover some basic debt) while putting your energy into a proper startup?
The general point of the book is to find a way to separate income from labor and thus free up your time to do things you really want to do. That probably includes founding a startup just as much as it would traveling around the world or cage fighting or whatever else.
I guess if it's necessary to get your startup off the ground it could be a good idea. It's just that I see a lot of people looking at the internet just as a source of money, rather than thinking how can I improve this or add something of value. Having said this I do think some of his techniques could be useful and the book was quite interesting.
The whole idea of spending 4 hours a week to run your startup business is just silly. Yes, I've read the book and know what kind of techniques he mentions but it doesn't fit for many businesses.
As an example. I could outsource my customer service to someone else, but then I lose that connection between the customer and I. I like having that connection, it allows me to see what my customers are looking for, what irks them, and allows me to further advance my business
That aspect gets talked about a lot (both in and out of the book), but the truth is he already had a business with paying customers, and he streamlined it so he could run it easily instead of trying to maximize revenue. A rarely mentioned part of the book is where he gives you steps to build a business like his. First, you have to do a lot of work, including doing everything from answering phones, writing marketing copy, packaging every item, etc by yourself. Only when you have a product, traction, customers, and experience managing them, can you write the scripts, evaluate vendors and outsourcers, and streamline the business so that a customer can buy, receive, return, or complain about your product without ever encountering you.
Despite the popular misconception, Tim Ferriss says you still have to build your own business. But if you pick the right business, you can put it on autopilot once it's built. But that aspect isn't controversial enough to get a lot of press.
For people wanting to create an internet site/service of value and are really passionate about technology and the internet and enjoy focusing a lot of time on that then this probably isn't a good book to read.