
Startup Reading List - snickmy
http://www.nicolabortignon.com/startup-reading-list/
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n72
The great majority of people shouldn't read these — not because they're not
good books or don't increase one's chances of startup success (they may or may
not — I have no clue), but because the great majority of people will think
they're doing startup stuff by reading them. It's confusing activity for
accomplishment. If you do read these, keep in mind the entire time you're
reading these you're not working on your startup. In other words, be very
cognizant of the fact that you may very well be procrastinating.

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randomsearch
This is a ridiculous comment. Read and learn from other people. Just don't
substitute that for learning from experiment, instead use it as in a
complimentary manner.

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unholiness
My interpretation of n72's comment: These books aren't worth reading because
they make you focus your time and mental energy on activities that make a good
_startup_ , rather than activities that make a good _product_.

There's a temptation, when you're an early-stage startup with little
direction, to start "playing house"[0]: Trying make your startup look and feel
like all these other successful startups you've seen, and, by reading more
books, getting positive feedback for doing those things.

There's obviously value in wisdom gained from those who've walked down this
road before. But it's not worth obsessing over how to make the perfect
startup. It is worth obsessing over how you can be delivering more value to
your customers.

[0] PG's term
[http://paulgraham.com/before.html](http://paulgraham.com/before.html)

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projectramo
Startup books are like books about screenwriting: the common wisdom is you
learn the most by actually doing it. Reading about it without doing it is like
reading about the piano or programming without actually doing it.

Now, once you've started the most useful book or resource has to do with the
problem you face. If you have customers but need to raise money, its one kind
of advice. If you have a customers but the product isn't working, its another
sort of advice.

If you don't have customers, well, that's the hard part.

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mettamage
The way you related it to programming gave me a whole new perspective. Books
and coaching have a role to play in programming, for example. Most of the time
it is to accelerate learning it. Yet, you do need to have some momentum to
begin with by having an own project. I never looked at it so clearly with
regards to startups.

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wslh
This is stupid and the startup community should mature beyond inspirational
sources. Making your own company is really hard and I am not talking about
creating a company like Facebook or Google, I am talking about creating
something that gives you a 10x over a salary without being your own slave. If
that is really hard you can't imagine how difficult (removing luck) is to
achieve hypergrowth in an ethical way.

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drinchev
Thank you. Pretty good list of dev blogs to put on my RSS feed.

For the inspirational books / articles, I usually get too excited and loose my
reality check when I read them.

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snickmy
For the inspiring books, I tend to divide them in two categories.

1- the really inspiring one, which I read when I'm in a 'low' period. 2- the
gems books, or in other words, those who have some key gems related to
specific processes or pivotal moments in a startup life. Those are extremely
good as 'go to' resources, when you are living the exact same moment in your
own venture.

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zk00006
Who has time for that while running startup? I'd say: don't read, do your
business.

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snickmy
Those books have been suggested/given to me by Unicorn founders. There is a
moment, as C*O, that you need to mature. Turning your 'garage' project into a
scalable and structured company. Those reading gives you good direct insight
by people that have been there before. We just need to stay humble and remind
ourself that there is always opportunities to learn from others. Not just by
our own mistakes.

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ing33k
the list also has links to tech blogs maintained by Startups.

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neurobuddha
A real entrepreneur wouldn't bother reading these books. They'd be too busy
working on their idea and learning firsthand.

I've read two titles from this list (The Lean Startup and Trust Me, I’m Lying)
and halfway through both realised I knew it already.

No book has all the answers. It's better to attack a business idea
intelligently in your own unique way.

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hahagavkdr
Euclid

Baby Rudin

Collected speeches of De Gaulle and many biographies

The Bible

The Bhagavad-Gita

The Iliad

Thucydides

Xenophon

Chaos and Pain training manual

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votr
'Chaos and Pain training manual'

What's this?

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hahagavkdr
Powerlifting training manual by Jamie Lewis

