
Books on Entrepreneurship - kpgrio
https://blog.paymill.com/books-entrepreneurship/
======
varunjuice
Having helped start a business & taken it from no revenue to mid 7 figures in
revenue, I think what's missing from this list is books that convey how

1/ uncertain & dark the days of building a business are 2/ you're at the mercy
of randomness (despite having a strong sense of agency)

In that sense, a few books that tell you that darkness is a rite of passage
for building great companies would be

1/ Soul of a New Machine - [http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-
Kidder-ebook/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy-Kidder-
ebook/dp/B005HG4W9W/)

2/ Fooled by Randomness - [http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-
Markets-Incer...](http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Markets-
Incerto-ebook/dp/B001FA0W5W/r)

3/ Coders at Work - [http://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft-
Programm...](http://www.amazon.com/Coders-Work-Reflections-Craft-Programming-
ebook/dp/B002RHN7RM/r)

4/ The Innovators - [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21856367-the-
innovators](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21856367-the-innovators)

5/ The Hard thing about hard things -
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18176747-the-hard-
thing-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18176747-the-hard-thing-about-
hard-things)

6/ Are your lights on? - [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11221270-are-
your-lights...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11221270-are-your-lights-
on)

~~~
kpgrio
Totally agree with you there. Will certainly check out those books and keep
the list updated. Thanks for the suggestions :)

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iolothebard
I'd say reading a book on interpersonal relationships is better, then sales,
then finance/accounting, THEN some entrepreneurial startup books.

1\. How to win friends and influence people

2\. 7 habits

3\. Any good sales book (I liked [http://www.amazon.com/10-Steps-Sales-
Success-Shorten/dp/0814...](http://www.amazon.com/10-Steps-Sales-Success-
Shorten/dp/081447165X) )

[http://www.amazon.com/Successful-Cold-Call-Selling-
Examples/...](http://www.amazon.com/Successful-Cold-Call-Selling-
Examples/dp/0814477186/)

4\. Accounting for dummies or something like that, same with finance (I have a
degree in Finance, was much more helpful than I realized)

5\. One or so of these books (Parent listing).

Most people don't realize every job involves selling. Relationships and
communicating effectively along with having good understanding over the whole
business is helpful. If you don't think any of the sales stuff applies to you,
I wish you good luck :-)

~~~
vldx
Also worth mentioning in this context is To Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink.

~~~
kpgrio
Haven't read it, but heard very good things about it. Definitely on my reading
list now :)

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davidw
I'd actually recommend avoiding The Lean Startup if you read anything at all
and have been paying attention to blogs and the news. It doesn't say anything
you haven't already heard, and is kind of high level (or "hand wavy" if you
want to be harsher).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_startup](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_startup)
contains most of what you need to know.

~~~
piker
Moreover, with a few exceptions, many modern entrepreneurship books simply
assimilate and tune content that the authors have already presented online.

------
rokhayakebe
An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes of The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith
1776

~~~
xaetium
Haha - I think maybe only the directors of The Adam Smith Institute have read
the original. Fortunately, after one of them did, he wrote this:
[http://www.adamsmith.org/sites/default/files/resources/conde...](http://www.adamsmith.org/sites/default/files/resources/condensed-
WoN.pdf)

------
sinful
[http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html)

------
patrickxb
Badass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy Sierra

[http://www.amazon.com/Badass-Making-Awesome-Kathy-
Sierra/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Badass-Making-Awesome-Kathy-
Sierra/dp/1491919019)

~~~
kpgrio
Thanks for sharing, that looks like pretty cool book to read and recently
published too :)

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wj
Start Small Stay Small by Rob Walling is the one that spoke to me in my
position the most: [http://smile.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-
Launchin...](http://smile.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-
Launching/dp/0615373968/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427913930&sr=8-1&keywords=start+small+stay+small)

He has a podcast, Startups For the Rest of Us, that you can listen to for free
on iTunes.

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Turukawa
About 15 years ago, I developed a startup challenge for micro-enterprises
called the Thousand Rand Challenge (about $100 at the time). That became a
large-scale project, starting 1,000 businesses simultaneously. We Creative-
Commons the results here:
[http://startup.wikia.com/wiki/Thousand_Rand_Challenge](http://startup.wikia.com/wiki/Thousand_Rand_Challenge)

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JohnLen
Lean analytics is one of the highly recommended book to read. In fact, most of
the book by Eric Ries are worth to read especially for startup entrepreneur.

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Excluse
Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

Zero to One by Peter Thiel

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nickgrosvenor
I really like the book Different by Youngme Moon.

