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Caitlin Rozakis, Startup Hell. Titan Books. 2026. ISBN13: 978-1-835-41586-3. $19.99.


Leave it to a professional marketer to tell us about the special kind of hell it is to work at a startup. Everyone does the job of at least three people, leadership pivots to different products on a whim, and some of your coworkers would sell their soul to cash out.


In Caitlin Rozakis’s new book Startup Hell, all of those things are literally true. The startup Zabloom (I mean, really?) pivots more often than a small-college basketball center and marketer Morgan Blackwater-McKey is caught in the middle. Then her supervisor dies while summoning a demon and things get worse. And worse. And worse.


Selling one’s soul to a demon for earthly benefit isn’t that uncommon in Morgan’s world. Her mother is a professional mystical ass-kicker with the scars to prove it, vampires run venture capital firms, and angels dispense justice while barely knowing why. Morgan has a magical disability similar to dyslexia that prevents her from using magic effectively, but she is familiar with the craft and knows how to manage herself when the sparks fly.


Rozakis deftly blends all-to-real details of startup life with a fun speculative world of demonic contracts. It turns out the price for earthly riches is somewhat less than eternal damnation but no less satisfying when the truly deserving pay the cost. Throw in a fun and funny romance with a handsome junior salesdemon trying to make his own quarterly targets and you’ve got yourself a winner.


Startup Hell tells a great story. More to the point for me, it asks what the infernal realm would do differently, if anything, from our terrestrial companies to demand top performance from their sales reps. There are a few uneven moments but they don’t detract from the overall experience. You’ll probably spot a dozen startup products that flamed out gloriously along with the personalities that tried to convince us we needed a marginal product built by people with no other goal than to cash out.


Highly recommended.