15 Business Books Every Aspiring Entrepreneur
Should Read
Ben Horowitz, cofounder of
Andreessen Horowitz, offers up a
brutally honest look not at what’s
needed to start a business, but what it
takes to run one. Readers can
appreciate the equally entertaining
and shrewd descriptions of his
journey from software engineer to
venture capital CEO. His no-nonsense
approach and relatable wisdom are
characteristics I consider to be
invaluable for anyone in a leadership
role, whether at a startup or a Fortune-
level corporation.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No
Easy Answers
In her book Resonate, presentation expert
and Harvard Business Review contributor
Nancy Duarte explores a number of proven
techniques for transforming any
presentation into what she describes as "an
engaging journey" for audiences. As the
leaders of our companies, it's imperative
that we maintain a thorough command of
the spoken word in such a way that elicits
any number of desired responses from
clients, investors, and colleagues alike. This
book spells out the how-tos behind these
key communicative skills.
Whether you’re doing the dog and pony show for funding, seeking to
effectively communicate with your team, or looking to position yourself as
a thought leader in your industry, you’re going to need to learn to make
and give stellar presentations. Ask any business owner and he or she will
tell you, strong in-person presentation and communication skills are
the difference between the remembered and the forgotten.
Resonate: Present Visual Stories That
Transform Audiences
Business Model Generation: A Handbook for
Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
With social networks, blogs, and
daily startup life generating more
din than an oncoming freight train,
knowing when and how to cut
through the noise can be
tough. Business Model
Generation zeroes in on today’s
shared language of success while
educating readers about the
building blocks of businesses,
beginning with a concept known
as the business model canvas.
This book stands as an invaluable
tool for defining, iterating upon,
and innovating your business
model.
The core of every successful
startup today hinges on the
product and the experience, be it
for a user or consumer. Here
Mark Stickdorn highlights the
importance of human-centered
design and discusses methods
for customer and design
research. I'd say without
reservation that this one's a
must-read for any active or
aspiring business owner or
product marketer.
This is Service Design Thinking: Basics,
Tools, Cases
But before you run off and eliminate
groupthink from your toolbox, I suggest you
readGamestorming by Dave Gray. This self-
described playbook serves as a how-to for
overseeing effective team collaboration.
Grab yourself a copy if you’re looking to
shake up the ways in which you co-create
and ideate with employees or customers. I
should know– this book inspired an entirely
new method of growth hacking at our
company, which we’re now calling the 50/50
experiment.
Brainstorms possess the ability to either exhilarate and excite or frustrate
and discourage those participants charged with creating from them
products, campaigns, or brand concepts. Many reports point to the latter,
maintaining that most brainstorms are toxic and a complete waste of time.
Says organizational psychologist Adrian Furnham, “Evidence from science
suggests that business people must be insane to use brainstorming
groups.”
Game storming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rule
breakers, and Change makers
By the same team that brought
us Business Model Generation,
this book lays the groundwork for
defining and understanding
successful value propositions.
Whether that success translates
into a sound business with
engaged and happy customers or a
major acquisition from Google, it’s
safe to say this book is a
worthwhile buy. With applicable
exercises and workshop ideas for
colleagues and clients alike, Value
Proposition Design undoubtedly
lives up to its title.
Value Proposition Design: How to Create
Products and Services That Customers
Want
These days you can’t scroll through a
marketing blog without being inundated
with headlines about shiny SAAS tools.
Analytics, social listening, you name it.
But with enough gizmos and services to
fill our minds and browser extensions,
it’s amazing how often we overlook the
need to equip ourselves with the single
most important tool: our own ability to
lead. That’s because ultimately, it’s on
us as the founders to instill that same
virtue in our teams. As education expert
John Holt once noted, “True leaders, in
short, do not make people into
followers, but into other leaders.”
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership:
Follow Them and People Will Follow You
Eric Ries is the Tony Robbins of the
startup world. Thanks to his
refreshingly concise writing style,
his book is chock full of relatable
lessons. His pointed honesty is one
of the many reasons I refer this book
to just about every entrepreneur I
know. His explanation of the Build-
Measure-Learn framework educates
readers on the uses of customer-
based observation, a tool that ought
to exist at the heart of every startup.
The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
This one stands out for its ability to convey
the many challenges you will inevitably face
as a founder. Author Noam Wasserman
frames what he calls the “three R’s”–
relationships, roles, and rewards– as factors
every founder must constantly evaluate and
adjust. He places special emphasis on the
ways in which organizers can confidently go
about making tough choices about human
and financial capital. My favorite part about
this read is how in-depth the lessons it
contains actually are. Suffice it to say, I wish
it existed when I was starting my business.
The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup
As the founder, owner, and
veritable captain of your ship, you
can expect to encounter countless
distractions, both personal and
professional. Great leaders know
how and when to be myopic in their
scope of work. Essentialism
teaches us the ways of a modern
day “essentialist”. That is, how to
be the type that works smarter, not
harder, in order to maximize on
productivity levels across the
board.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of
Less
When we talk about failure being the
foundation for success, Ed
Catmull’s Creativity, Inc. is treasured by
many for its candid story and style. In it, he
recounts the inception and creation of his
company (for those unaware, that’d be the
world famous Pixar Animation Studios). It’s
not your average philosophical recipe for
management or bland, chest-pounding tale
of overcoming the odds, but rather a simple
narrative of one man’s childhood passion
for art and technology. How he forged that
into the ideals and experiences behind one
of the most innovative companies of our
time, is something every one of us can
stand to learn a thing or two from. This
one’s a remarkably insightful look at how
even the most successful careers are
comprised of countless failures. Catmull’s
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True
Inspiration
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone
to Take Action & Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams
Pull Together and Others Don't
Speaking of empathy, Simon Sinek’s
books Leaders Eat Last and Start With Why are
two truly reflective books that out to be in every
founder’s literary arsenal. He uses biological
evidence to assess the psychological and
sociological impact of empathy, and offers
various frameworks for ways in which empathy
itself can be utilized as a tool to drive your
organization’s success. Though similar in nature,
both of Sinek’s books carry unique sets of
takeaways for today’s founders. Start with
Why explains the fundamental need to know and
articulate our business’ “why”, while Leaders Eat
Last teaches us how to uphold the tenets of our
“why” as we incorporate new people into the
folds of our business.
Outliers: The Story of Success
When we think about what drives success,
we often point to fundamental elements like
hard work, passion, and commitment. But
what about more arbitrary factors like a
person’s birth date, cultural background, or
familial upbringing? Author Malcolm
Gladwell encourages readers to consider
how individualized one’s own potential for
success actually is. Redefine your definition
of success–and learn how the “10,000-Hour
Rule” applies to you– in this thought-
provoking bestseller.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make
the Leap … And Others Don’t
Let’s be real, not every company among us
breeds excellence. While some possess the
DNA makeup conducive to long term success,
countless others simply do not. But is it
possible, still, for those companies classified
as “mediocre” to carve out permanent places
for themselves in today’s market? To make the
leap from good to great? Jim Collins examines
this question, and in the process uncovers a
certain set of characteristics capable of
distinguishing a company’s potential for
enduring greatness. The findings in Good to
Great reveal the qualities of successful leaders,
the importance of technology, and the need for
a disciplined culture, among a number of other
truths that will almost certainly impact your
business.