10 Must-Read Books When Starting Your Own Business
Every founder has been there - at the beginning. There are so many things you need to know when starting your own "thing", so many mistakes you are about to make and so many valuable learnings you're about to receive. But, good news: some of these mistakes you might be able to avoid. We've collected the 10 best books that will help you get started with your own business.
Testing Business Ideas
Why read?
7 out of 10 new products fail to deliver on expectations. Testing Business Ideas aims to reverse that statistic. In the tradition of Alex Osterwalder’s global bestseller Business Model Generation, this practical guide contains a library of hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas.
368 pages, 2019
Why Startups Fail
Why read?
If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it.
368 pages, 2021
The Lean Startup
Why read?
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup turned into a classic and must-read book when it comes to changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs — in companies of all sizes — a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in an age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
338 pages, 2011
Sprint
Why read?
From three partners at Google Ventures, a unique five-day process for solving tough problems, proven at more than a hundred companies. Entrepreneurs and leaders face big questions every day: What’s the most important place to focus your effort, and how do you start? What will your idea look like in real life? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you have the right solution? A practical guide to answering critical business questions, Sprint is a book for teams of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to nonprofits. It’s for anyone with a big opportunity, problem, or idea who needs to get answers today.
288 pages, 2016
The Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital
Why read?
Venture capital is a powerful tool for entrepreneurship—one that can help overcome some of the challenges of starting and scaling a new business. It’s notoriously easy for founders to take wrong turns in their path to financing a company—but many mistakes are avoidable with the right knowledge. Author Andy Sparks is a three-time founder whose goal is helping entrepreneurs avoid pain, costly mistakes, and fruitless research.
322 pages, 2021
Blitzscaling
Why read?
In this book, the LinkedIn Co-founder Reid Hoffmann and Chris Yeh share their secret of how to build a market-leading company with a growing business while outdoing competitors. They call it “Blitzscaling” — prioritizing speed over efficiency in the development of a company even in the face of uncertainty.
336 pages, 2018
Company of One
Why read?
Company of One is a refreshingly new approach centered on staying small and avoiding growth, for any size business. Not as a freelancer who only gets paid on a per piece basis, and not as an entrepreneurial start-up that wants to scale as soon as possible, but as a small business that is deliberately committed to staying that way. By staying small, one can have freedom to pursue more meaningful pleasures in life, and avoid the headaches that result from dealing with employees, long meetings, or worrying about expansion. Company of One introduces this unique business strategy and explains how to make it work for you, including how to generate cash flow on an ongoing basis.
272 pages, 2019
The Evergreen Startup
Why read?
Learn the insider secrets to getting funded by accessing millions of dollars from traditional and non-traditional sources of startup capital.
_The Evergreen Startup _approach greatly diversifies the sources of capital available to an early-stage startup. It is the core of the startup funding curriculum taught to entrepreneurs at the MIT Enterprise Forum and has been used—in the real world—by hundreds of founders to raise many millions of dollars.
390 pages, 2020
Good Strategy Bad Strategy
Why read?
This book clears out the mumbo jumbo and muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world
322 pages, 2017
The Startup Owner's Manual
Why read?
The Startup Owner’s Manual guides you, step-by-step, as you put the Customer Development process to work. This method was created by renowned Silicon Valley startup expert Steve Blank, co-creator with Eric Ries of the “Lean Startup” movement and tested and refined by him for more than a decade. This 608-page how-to guide includes over 100 charts, graphs, and diagrams, plus 77 valuable checklists that guide you as you drive your company toward profitability. It will help you: • Avoid the 9 deadly sins that destroy startups’ chances for success • Use the Customer Development method to bring your business idea to life • Incorporate the Business Model Canvas as the organizing principle for startup hypotheses • Identify your customers and determine how to “get, keep and grow” customers profitably • Compute how you’ll drive your startup to repeatable, scalable profits.
608 pages, 2020