Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read

http://jasonevanish.com/2012/07/01/11-books-every-entrepreneur-should-read/

by jevanish • 14 years ago

140 57 14 years ago

jasonevanish.com

jevanish4• 14 years ago

Curious what books the Hacker News community considers must read?

acoyfellow• 14 years ago

I just added these books to my "To Get" list.. Which is already large.

As a broke fresh college graduate, one of the most widely talked about books (and one I actually bought myself) was Eric Ries' The Lean Startup. It really helped me feel like I had a sense of direction instead of "thinking I knew" something,

kdsudac• 14 years ago

The public library is your friend, especially if you live in the right area. For example, many California libraries are in a program called Link+ that allows you to borrow books from other libraries, including college libraries.

Even if a book you want isn't in the library's catalog, go talk to a librarian. They can work some magic.

rdl• 14 years ago

Also check out public libraries with Overdrive (eBooks).

Another thing to do is see if your college will let you keep online or other library access for a nominal fee. I remember (ab)using MIT libraries for a while after leaving.

theoutlander• 14 years ago

Founders at work by Jessica Livingston, Rework by Jason Fried and DHH, The Startup Owners Manual by Steve Blank...

djt• 14 years ago

here's mine: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4018867

judofyr• 14 years ago

Hacker News stories which contains plenty of book recommendations (sorted by points, labeled by topic):

Science Fiction: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2978027

Computer Science: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3595599

General: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752139

Design: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3276986

Computer Science: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1636275

Developing mental models and increasing cognition: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277457

Quant finance: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3177815

General: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=663662

General (non software): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1226736

Math: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=665029

General: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=875686

Entrepreneur: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2928211

Statistics: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=902074

Philosophy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1503137

General: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1865350

Math for beginners: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=755043

Military strategy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=456275

General: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=797070

Investing: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=248469

"I want to start a web company": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1567456

jevanish4• 14 years ago

Thanks for puling this list together...I added it to the bottom of my post so more people can see what you helped assemble. Thanks!

franze3• 14 years ago

here is a question i started for sci-fi books which got some decent recommendations http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3781486

lpolovets• 14 years ago

This is great compilation of links. Thank you.

paulovsk• 14 years ago

thank you

ThomPete5• 14 years ago

My general advice for entrepreneurs (although I am sure most of them know already) would be to not read books too close to the subject you want to know about. Instead you should read books about subjects around the field of entrepreneurship. (accounting or financing as an example)

If I where to give one recommendation it would be Clayton Christensens "The Innovators Dilemma"

That book isn't specific to entrepreneurs but to business in general. It is however the one book that will give you an understanding of the game you are in.

As en entrepreneur you are trying to find the holes in the cheese or create your own. Not to eat it.

jdp232• 14 years ago

Agreed about The Innovators Dilemma; and from the original list, Founders at Work, Crucial Conversations, and The Design of Everyday Things. Your mileage may vary on The Alchemist; some people find it transformational, others aren't so excited. I haven't read the others on the list so don't mean to be dissing them, just don't have any first-hand experience.

I'd also add

- Sherry Turkle's The Second Self - Geoffrey Miller's Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado (a different Geoffrey Miller than the one in the original list :) ) - Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan, The Entrepreneurial Mindset

ThomPete5• 14 years ago

I have never understood why people are so positive about "Design of everyday things".

I guess the book might make you appreciate design and that might affect your sensitivity to design.

But I think you need to have a general affection for design in general to really get anything out of the book.

Otherwise you run the risk of thinking your understand design now that you have read a book about it.

Just my opinion of course.

wensheng• 14 years ago

Should be Geoffrey Moore.

davidw4• 14 years ago

> The Innovators Dilemma

Good book, but ... can't you pretty much sum it up in a page or two at most?

ThomPete5• 14 years ago

You mean just like every other business book? :)

Perhaps although I think there are more gems in this book (and Druckers for that matter) than in most other books.

He talks about something less trivial and fundamental about innovation which I don't think most other books I have read do.

You can also listen to this: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail135.html

A great speech he did a while back which sums up his opinion.

pchristensen• 14 years ago

The one page summary only works if you already believe it. The rest of it describes the research methodology that led to the disruption theory. He goes through many industries (OTOMH, disk drives, steel mini-mills, and ditch digging machines plus many more) to show how a new, worse technology served some new market, gained a foothold and customer base to build from, then improved to the point where it displaced the incumbent.

Think of PCs vs workstations, the iPhone vs Blackberry (the iPhone was a terrible smartphone according the the market in 2007, i.e. heavy email/business users), etc.

FWIW, I think the sequel, The Innovator's Solution, is a more useful book.

diego_moita• 14 years ago

> The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Ok, nothing to see here, move along.

Disclaimer: I am Brazilian and read this book in Portuguese. That might explain why I don't like Paulo Coelho. I see him as a pop version of Herman Hesse, an easy to read cheap mystic. Gave up on these kind of readings a long ago.

intellegacy• 14 years ago

Agree. Friends saw me as a dreamer, and so for several years I received numerous recommendations to read The Alchemist.

I found the story superficial, disjointed, and disappointing overall. I'm not sure what the appeal is.

franze3• 14 years ago

i know i know you should never open a "hate" group on facebook, i did so anyway a few years ago after one of his books took two hours of my life that i will never get back.

here is the fb url https://www.facebook.com/groups/40433509545/

i know that this is not very HN, but neither is a "xx books ever entrepreneur should read" linkbaitblogpost on the front page.

here my favorite quotes:

"porn movies has better plot than his books"

"He mixes a couple of diff books in one (but the other two arent his :-)"

"Reminds me something that could be called langue de bois, a suspicious rhetoric that is targeted towards desire of happiness. Too good to be true, to abstract to be examined, too vague to be accomplished. I guess the speeches of early USSR politics could be depicted as a same type langue de bois, that were talking about a perfect society in a loud tone of sentiments and deep emotionality, but created nothing more than utopian abortion."

"in my opinion people who actually like Paulo Coelho have never ever read a real book and are unable to enjoy literature. Paulo Coelho = scary new age pseudo babble for lost middle class brats. It is good news for Paulo Coelho's bank account the world is full of those."

ramblerman• 14 years ago

It's fair enough to not like a book. I didn't really care for it either.

When you express this level of hate for something however, I'd venture to say it's more about yourself than you might think. You talk about 2 hours of your life wasted, yet your still burning energy in hating it, and forming a group of all things.

inuhj• 14 years ago

"pop version of Herman Hesse" sums him up well. It's intro to spirituality. Paulo Coelho bangs you over the head with his ideas instead of letting them flow naturally from the text.

isalmon• 14 years ago

I can say from my personal experience that this book inspired me to come to the US first and move to Silicon Valley later. Everyone's perception is different. I read it 10 years ago when Coelho was not that popular and while reading it I was not thinking about what other people thought about Coelho, I was thinking about what was written and it related to me deeply.

So I think you might be right that he became too populat, but I disagree that "nothing to see here", I'm sure a lot of people will find inspiration just like I did.

raverbashing• 14 years ago

10 years ago Paulo Coelho was already very popular!

Well, I haven't read the book so I can't comment on the rest

gozzoo• 14 years ago

I'm just curious - what do you conceder good spiritual literature. Could you give an example - what's worth reading?

boltenderus• 14 years ago

yeah, read anything by robert anton wilson and alan watts check this out........ http://freespace.virgin.net/sarah.peter.nelson/lazyman/lazym...

zem• 14 years ago

i think you were looking to get more out of the book than the author put into it. personally, i loved the book - i'm a fan of folk-tale and fairy-tale retellings in modern novel form, and "the alchemist" was, i felt, a very well-done example of one.

adrianhoward2• 14 years ago

One that's pretty much always on my list of recommendations is DeMarco & Lister's "Peopleware" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware:_Productive_Projects...

More than twenty years old now—yet still incredibly relevant. If you're new to building/leading/managing teams or project management, and don't have a copy, go get one now.

michaelpinto• 14 years ago

It makes me sad that Peter Drucker is so out of style with you kids. I was recently reading a book about Google and they made a huge reference to Druker's OKR system (outcomes and key results). I found a decent article on it here if anybody wants a summary: http://jephmaystruck.com/how-do-you-measure-your-strategy/

ThomPete5• 14 years ago

I couldn't agree more. His books are some of the most thoughtful and insightful books I have ever read.

pwang• 14 years ago

I've found recommendations for Drucker on some entrepreneurial sites. I think if they re-released his books with updated covers (hire whoever does Malcolm Gladwell's covers), they might grab more attention from the "young generation".

_gd3l• 14 years ago

I'd highly recommend Nassim Taleb's "The Black Swan", that's a useful tool for reminding you how little you know and how little everyone else knows.

Personally, that's a motivator to build a product without being concerned about what all the other products are doing / how they look. It's also a great reminder of the importance of empiricism in some parts of life, which is great to keep in mind with something as simple as debugging your code or doing customer support...coming at a problem like an experiment, from the position of knowing nothing, means you can get to the answer faster (usually) and with more accuracy and precision.

davidjgraph• 14 years ago

Here's my tip, stop reading books about it, stop reading the 15 articles published about it daily, just get on with implementing something. No, really.

rburhum• 14 years ago

For entrepreneurship some people may say you you committed blasphemy by ommiting Lean Startup and Business Model Generation

davidw4• 14 years ago

Lean Startup fell pretty flat for me. It felt like there wasn't much "there there". Recommended alternatives:

Read it, liked it more than Lean Startup: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055D7O1U/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

Started reading it, seems much more thorough than Lean Startup: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0984999302/ref=as_li_ss_tl?... - annoyingly does not have a Kindle version.

Haven't ready it, heard it's good: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006UKFFE0/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

And of course, my favorite of all, because it's full of real, practical advice, Start Small, Stay Small.

jevanish4• 14 years ago

I gotta agree with you. Conceptually Lean Startup was ok, but there was zero content in it that I could easily grasp and apply to a company. It was all too high level. I think most of Clayton Christensen's books are the same way.

Eric Ries is in the consulting business (like Clayton) and he's trying to bring Lean Startup to the mainstream & big companies. I think his book achieves that goal but at the expense of being helpful to startups.

pclark• 14 years ago

High Output Management by Andy Grove

Jack Welch: Straight From the Gut

The Innovators' Solution.

PHPAdam• 14 years ago

>How to Win Friends and Influence People OR "How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age" by same Author

jaredsohn• 14 years ago

In case anyone is wondering how Dale Carnegie wrote a book on "How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age", the actual author for the current edition of both books is credited to "Dale Carnegie & Associates"

robbfitzsimmons• 14 years ago

I must admit, that was a head-scratcher... an amazing accomplishment when they're still crediting an author from the 30s.

craigkerstiens• 14 years ago

To add a few that span outside entrepreneurship, but are of course very valuable to entrepreneurs:

Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love (http://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Create-Products-Customers-Lov...) - The best if not only required reading for product management

Peopleware (http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-S...) - Great read on managing and understanding people as it relates to organizations

Managing Humans (http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Engi...) - Obviously on management, you can read much on this http://randsinrepose.com/, though the book does a great job of consolidating it

jevanish4• 14 years ago

Great call on Inspired. Hands down the best Product book out there...haven't heard any others even in the conversation.

adaml_623• 14 years ago

Doesn't anybody realise that affiliate links to amazon.com don't catch users from the UK or Europe. Surely it's not that difficult to install a geotargetting plugin to rewrite those links to amazon.co.uk, .ft .de, etc.

Also a question if any Amazoners are reading this. Why when I click from the amazon.com to amazon.co.uk does it not remember the book I'm looking at. Come on guys it's not the 20th century anymore.

firefoxman1• 14 years ago

I'd add Poke the Box by Seth Godin.

krollew• 14 years ago

I'd add "Reality Test" by Guy Kawasaki.

jaylevitt• 14 years ago

_The Halo Effect_, Phil Rozenzweig: http://www.amazon.com/The-Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions/dp/...

This revisits books from earlier in the decade (like _Good to Great_), and shows that many of the profiled companies failed. It's a great way to learn how to read entrepreneurship books; many theories are based on "Intel is successful; Intel does X; therefore doing X will make you successful".

In general, go read books from ten years ago and see if any of the predictions held up. Likewise, I recommend _Founders at Work_ because so many of these (currently) successful companies were launched with opposing philosophies, and all of them worked. Open plan? Works! Offices? Also works! Deep funding? Works! Bootstrapping? Also works!

SatvikBeri• 14 years ago

This is part of what makes The Innovator's Dilemma so great and believable-a lot of the predictions the author makes turned out to be correct over the next 15 years.

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