I occasionally get email from Quora asking me to submit answer when people ask about business books they should read.
Today, the query was someone asking – “What are the best business startup books?”
I have been watching this category for almost a decade and in the last couple of months I gone back to many of these titles to research Every Book Is a Startup.
To start, read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau. They are two very different kinds of books but they are both general in their approach to the topic of startups. Ries uses a tech approach; Guillebeau uses a lifestyle approach.
If you are working on your value hypothesis (aka is anyone interested in my idea):
- Jobs To Be Done by Anthony Ulwick
- Competing Against Luck by Clay Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David Duncan.
- You should also check out The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick and Talking To Humans by Gift Constable for great advice on talking to prospects and customers.
If you are working on your growth hypothesis:
- Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
- Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown.
If you are working on your business hypothesis:
- Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Osterwalder.
Other important books in my humble opinion include:
- Made to Stick by Dan Heath and Chip Heath – judge all your idea by their framework.
- Influence by Robert Cialdini, Contagious – does your marketing engage in each way?
- The Art of the Start 2.0 by Guy Kawasaki – great utility on pitching.
- The Innovator’s Hypothesis by Michael Schrage – proof that you need more experiments.
- and anything by Geoffrey Moore, especially Crossing the Chasm and Inside The Tornado.
