The 3 AM panic attack is familiar to most business owners. You bolt upright, sweating about that decision you made yesterday. Might it be the one that finally tanks everything? This universal dread is what prompted Furkat Kasimov to write his brutally honest new book. After watching countless promising ventures crash and burn, the tech entrepreneur and angel investor decided to compile “Don’t Do This: A Guide to Business Survival” – a no-nonsense collection of 150+ business failures you’d be smart to avoid.
The book speaks to those nagging doubts that plague entrepreneurs whether they’ve just hung their shingle or been at it for decades. Kasimov doesn’t sugarcoat the financial disasters, leadership fails, and marketing catastrophes that can demolish even solid business plans.
The basic philosophy running through the book? Learn from other people’s disasters instead of creating your own. Kasimov’s promotional materials put it succinctly – why make mistakes yourself when others have already made them for you? It’s this straight-talking approach that makes his guide feel less like a textbook and more like advice from that brutally honest friend we all need.
Kasimov didn’t exactly follow a traditional path himself. Fresh out of college in 2006, he landed at InsuranceLeads.com and worked his way up to VP of Digital Marketing. When acquisition talks started in 2011, he faced that pivotal decision: update the resume or take a flying leap? He chose the latter, co-founding LeadsMarket.com with a handful of colleagues who shared his appetite for risk.
“As an immigrant, I was driven by the desire to achieve the American Dream of building a successful business,” he says. That hunger for success bleeds through every page of his guide, lending credibility to his sometimes harsh assessments of business failures.
Unlike most business books that drone on with theoretical frameworks, Kasimov’s guide is refreshingly concrete. He shares actual train wrecks—pricing strategies that torpedoed promising startups, seemingly perfect hires that poisoned company culture, marketing campaigns that flushed budgets down the toilet. Each disaster comes with practical takeaways you can implement before your morning coffee.
For business owners who’ve experienced those stomach-dropping moments (the account balance that’s suddenly two zeros short, the client who ghosts after months of work, the marketing campaign that generates exactly zero leads), Kasimov offers more than sympathy. He provides a roadmap for navigating these treacherous waters without adding your business to the statistical scrap heap.
Between writing and entrepreneurial ventures, Kasimov keeps himself busy in the innovation ecosystem. He was recently tapped to judge the 2025 Globee Awards for Artificial Intelligence and the 2025 Techround UK Fintech 50 competition—credentials that further cement his standing as someone who can spot both brilliance and bull from a mile away.
Asked about the core message he hopes readers take from his book, Kasimov doesn’t hesitate: “AI is creating opportunities for founders that did not exist a few years ago. Adopt or be prepared to become irrelevant.” It’s a warning delivered without apology—exactly what you’d expect from someone who’s weathered enough storms to recognize a tsunami on the horizon.
The guide itself feels like a business confidant in book form. There’s a practicality to Kasimov’s advice that suggests he’s not just repeating business school mantras but sharing scars earned through experience. For the particularly meticulous, he even includes a checklist of red flags that might make you wince as you recognize your own business reflected in them.
If you’re the type who wants to dive deeper, Kasimov’s got you covered with supplementary resources that expand on his examples. The book itself is a quick read, designed for entrepreneurs who barely have time to eat lunch, let alone wade through 300 pages of business theory.
You can grab “Don’t Do This: A Guide to Business Survival” on Amazon or Google Play right now. For those who like to kick the tires before committing, check out the website at dontdothis.ai or browse the LinkedIn page for a taste of Kasimov’s approach. Your business account—and your blood pressure—will thank you.
