These are books that have made a difference to my thinking. I have read them all. They are not all perfect but sometimes we learn lessons from imperfection as well. Overtime I will keep adding to this list.
Top two to read now:
Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want
This book is visually amazing. Some in fact may find it too visual. It is an alternative book to The Startup Owners manual by Steve Blank or the The Lean Startup by Eric Reis. It takes the foundation laid in Business Model Generation Book and focus on customers and experimenting with those customers to establish a proven Value Proposition.
The contents is solid and assumes you have not a research background or a marketing background. Yet it gives you the things you need to know to reduce false positives.
Its approach is to assume the customer knows what they want.
I highly recommend this book for Product Leaders, MBA students, entrepreneurs, startup founders and project leaders.
Business Model Generation
Need to work how your business could make money, but not sure of which way to go. This book is an amazing and essential resource in establishing possible pathways. It also challenges you to stay flexible with business opportunities. It has some excellent real case studies in how to use this technique.
Top Lesson – Your business model should be a part of your daily thinking not lost in a 50 page MBA document.
Other great books
Getting Real -> Rework
Getting real was a good book to getting started, really from the perspective that you have all the skills and people already, it felt practical. Rework was a updated version and it felt more abstract, more about the business then the product.
Top Lesson – get on with it and start simple
Four Steps to Epiphany -> The Startup Manual
This book really helped me do proper market research and how to do it. It is really a step by step guide in how to build a business around an idea.The updated book was much better designed and easier to read.
Top Lesson – don’t pitch but listen to the customer pains
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development
There is also a “cheat sheet” by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovites, I liked it because it was visually pleasing and gets to the point faster then four-steps and The lean startup.
Do more faster
This book was like having lots of friendly practical tips. The chapters are short and it’s useful as a reference for early stage Startups.
Top Lesson – Founders earn equality too
Web 2.0: A strategy Guide
This book was full of case studies of web businesses that we all know, it shows their journey and their strategies. It is helpful in helping you think through the big picture in terms in how you handle the market, competition and evolving customers.
Top Lesson – Stay flexible and be ready to adapt but do have a long term vision with game plan, in your head.
Start Small, Stay Small: A developers guide to launching a startup
This is a really practical guide to how to turn your website into a business. What are your first few steps.
Top Lesson – There are many paths to the same goal.
Managing Startups: Best Blog Posts
This book pulls together some of the best blog posts on well everything startup.
For the founder who concentrates on the business, money side, culture
Startup CEO: How to Build a Company to Success
Great book for first time CEO and how to survive growth.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
War stories
Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less
Finding and addressing management and leadership weaknesses in organizations. It’s more relevant to large organizations but had plenty for small teams to incorporate as well.
Presentation Zen
You need to be good a telling your story, in a really simple fashion that all ages can understand. It helps you move away from bullet points to visual explanations.
Top Lesson – can you make this simplier?
Start with Why
This is an interesting book with a great TEDx video. It will encourage better pitches and storytelling and improve the marketing of your business and products.
Top Lesson – Those who start with WHY never manipulate, they inspire. And people follow them not because they have to; they follow because they want to.
This is told from the perspective of one person and his journey to learn the importance of organization culture. Every behavior or interaction you have will set the foundations for your Organisation. If you bully your people will copy you and bully to. What are values and principles? This book will help you start this journey.
Top Lesson – Happiness never decreases by being shared.
For the founder is more technology focused:
Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup
An awesome book how to bootstrap, written by a developer for developers.
The Art of Agile Development
A most excellent book with practical tips in how you can truly move in applying agile. This book uses xp programming as its pathway.
Top Lesson -Your software only begins to have real value when it reaches users.
This book gives a good description of clean code and how to achieve it in your own projects.It is based above some very clear principles and will help you think through the code your currently create.
Top Lesson – always commit better code then you have checked out.
Clean Coder
How good is your code? How professional are you really? Can you say no. Do you pass the buck? Are you accountable for your code. This author puts the prefect model out there, which is a good start for a dialogue for what is possible.
Top lesson – You need to say no when you need to say no
For the founder who is design focused, UX inclined:
The Smashing Mag Books 1,2,3
Both the books and the website are an excellent for both designers and developers alike. A smart collection on web design principles. It’s a high-level view of user interaction information and has useful takeaways in each chapter.
A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making
A step-by-step guide to web development from proposal through wire framing to testing and launch.
Final Thoughts
Now go and build, create and show us your vision.
You want more -> If you want to see all the books I have read on startups have a look at my goodreads profile and my startup shelf
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