PLAY THE BOOK

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

by Josh Kaufman

A practical guide to the core ideas behind value creation, marketing, sales, finance, and systems thinking that drive any successful business. Explore twenty-three worlds covering everything from customer psychology to financial statements, and practice applying timeless mental models to real decisions.

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23 maps · 111 characters · 379 questions · free to try, no account needed · book links are affiliate links

Three ways to play the same book. Climb the platformer and answer to refuel.

Loading the demo…

← → to move, Space to jump, ↓ + Space to drop through. Use the on-screen controls to run and jump. Orbs ask a question; a correct answer refuels the climb.

What's inside

23 maps, 111 characters and 379 questions, all generated from the book.

MAP 01

Forest of Value Creation

Explore the fundamentals of offering real value to customers.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 02

Marketing Desert

Cross the sands of attracting attention and finding prospects.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 03

Sales Castle

Master the art of closing deals within fortified negotiation walls.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 04

Iteration Cycle Caverns

Discover how feedback loops refine offerings over time.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 05

Distribution Ocean

Navigate direct-to-user versus intermediary distribution channels.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 06

Reputation Ruins

Uncover the ancient laws of trust and counterparty risk.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 07

Reference Level Icefields

Study how expectations shape behavior change.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 08

Conservation Volcano

Understand human laziness as an adaptive survival trait.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 09

Stress and Recovery Sanctuary

Balance exertion and rest to sustain long-term performance.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 10

System Failure Ruins

Examine normal accidents and why complex systems break.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 11

Deconstruction Caverns

Break complex systems into understandable parts.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 12

Gall's Law Fortress

Learn why simple systems must precede complex ones.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 13

Cognitive Scope Icelands

Explore the limits of human mental bandwidth.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 14

Mental Models Archive

Gather core frameworks for understanding business fundamentals.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 15

Financial Statements Ocean

Chart the seas of balance sheets and income statements.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 16

Financial Ratios Desert

Traverse dry data to reveal business health metrics.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 17

Constraint Volcano

Identify and exploit the bottleneck limiting your system.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 18

Feedback Loop Caves

Trace how outputs become inputs in living systems.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 19

Field Testing Forest

Test offerings in real-world conditions before launch.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 20

Most Important Tasks Castle

Prioritize critical work above all else each day.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 21

Energy Management Icefields

Preserve and channel personal energy for productivity.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 22

Attention Economy Ruins

Fight for scarce human attention in a noisy world.

5 characters · 17 questions

MAP 23

Systems Thinking Volcano

Integrate all fundamentals into a holistic business view.

1 characters · 5 questions

How the book becomes practice

Reading puts ideas in. Retrieval keeps them there. The game is the retrieval.

Walk the world of the book

23 maps, one per part of the book. Signs along the way hold its key ideas, so the walk itself is a refresher.

Battle the characters

111 characters, each a short quiz on one idea. Answer well and the map opens up; a boss guards the end of each one.

Missed ideas come back

Every question you get wrong is re-asked in rematches and boss fights, and the Flashcards mode schedules it with spaced repetition, until you get it right. That is the part that makes it stick.

Keep what you learn

Sign up for free and your demo progress, XP, best tower stage and flashcard schedules move to your account. Come back whenever a chapter starts to fade.

Questions

Is this the actual book?

No. This is a quiz game built from the ideas in "The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business": 379 multiple-choice questions with explanations, spread over 23 maps. It works best alongside the book, which is why the page links to where you can get it.

Is it free to play?

You can play the demos on this page without an account (5 battles in the RPG, 10 questions in the tower and 12 flashcard grades). Sign up for free to keep going; premium worlds come with a preview and Lifetime Pro unlocks everything.

Do I need to have read the book?

It works either way. If you have read it, the game is spaced repetition for what you learned. If you have not, every question comes with an explanation, so the game is a fast tour of the main ideas.

Does my demo progress carry over?

Yes. Sign up from the game and the characters you beat, your XP, your best tower stage and your flashcard schedules move to your account.

Are the book links affiliate links?

Yes. If you buy the book through one of them we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. It helps keep the free worlds free.