Ask HN: Essential books for starting/running a web company

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=481678
by sam_in_nyc • 17 years ago
12 9 17 years ago

I'm a pretty bright, college educated kid... but unfortunately I lack the knowledge and experience of running a company -- skills that I'm going to need very soon.

In under a month I'll be launching my web service which I know will be huge. There's no lack of motivation or willingness to continue working hard, but there is a serious lack of knowing how to set-up a business. I need to know how to compensate early employees, freelancers, cofounders, when there's no funding (something I'm dealing with right now), what I should be journaling during this process, and any other caveats of the web start-up industry.

Ideally this book will be written by someone in the internet industry who has plenty of experience. Basically, a concise, well-written book by a CEO turned VC would be ideal...

My main issue right now is that I've done all the development of this thing (took several months) and am going to be getting a couple of cofounders / early stage people to help me out.. which is not hard at all once they see the demo of it. But before I seal the deal with any of them, I want to be sure that there's something set up that's fair to all parties.

Somehow this request for a book has morphed into the true problem I'm having... but a book recommendation would still be great!

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