20 Best Books For Startup Founders (2023 Update)

Entrepreneur and bestselling author of the lean startup, eric ries reveals how entrepreneurial principles can be used by businesses of all kinds, ranging from established companies to early-stage startups, to grow revenues, drive innovation, and transform themselves into truly modern organizations, poised to take advantage of the enormous opportunities of the twenty-first century. in the lean startup, eric ries laid out the practices of successful startups – building a minimal viable product, customer-focused and scientific testing based on a build-measure-learn method of continuous innovation, and deciding whether to persevere or pivot. in the startup way, he turns his attention to an entirely new group of organizations: established enterprises like iconic multinationals ge and toyota, tech titans like amazon and facebook, and the next generation of silicon valley upstarts like airbnb and twilio. drawing on his experiences over the past five years working with these organizations, as well as nonprofits, ngos, and governments, ries lays out a system of entrepreneurial management that leads organizations of all sizes and from every industry to sustainable growth and long-term impact. filled with in-the-field stories, insights, and tools, the startup way is an essential road map for any organization navigating the uncertain waters of the century ahead.

And what he found looked far different than expected. just to mention a few: most unicorn founders had no industry experience;there's no disadvantage to being a solo founder or to being a non-technical ceo;less than 15% went through any kind of accelerator program;over half had strong competitors when starting–being first to market with an idea does not actually matter. you will also hear the stories of the early days of billion-dollar startups first-hand. the book includes exclusive interviews with the founders/investors of zoom, instacart, pay – pal, nest, github, flatiron health, kite pharma, facebook, stripe, airbnb, you – tube, linked – in, lyft, door – dash, coinbase, and square, venture capital investors like elad gil, peter thiel, alfred lin from sequoia capital and keith rabois of founders fund, as well as previously untold stories about the early days of byte – dance (tik – tok), whats – app, dropbox, discord, di – di, flipkart, instagram, careem, peloton, and space – x. packed with counterintuitive insights and inside stories from people who have built massively successful companies, super founders is a paradigm-shifting and actionable guide for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone interested in what makes a startup successful.

Often downplayed in the excitement of starting up a new business venture is one of the most important decisions entrepreneurs will face: should they go it alone, or bring in cofounders, hires, and investors to help build the business? more than just financial rewards are at stake. friendships and relationships can suffer. bad decisions at the inception of a promising venture lay the foundations for its eventual ruin. the founder's dilemmas is the first book to examine the early decisions by entrepreneurs that can make or break a startup and its team. drawing on a decade of research, noam wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them. he looks at whether it is a good idea to cofound with friends or relatives, how and when to split the equity within the founding team, and how to recognize when a successful founder-ceo should exit or be fired. wasserman explains how to anticipate, avoid, or recover from disastrous mistakes that can splinter a founding team, strip founders of control, and leave founders without a financial payoff for their hard work and innovative ideas. he highlights the need at each step to strike a careful balance between controlling the startup and attracting the best resources to grow it, and demonstrates why the easy short-term choice is often the most perilous in the long term. the founder's dilemmas draws on the inside stories of founders like evan williams of twitter and tim westergren of pandora, while mining quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders. people problems are the leading cause of failure in startups. this book offers solutions.

In 2017 34% of the workforce was considered part of the gig economy. this growing workforce of freelancers and side-giggers is also estimated to grow to 43% by 2020. that's 4 million freelancers, soon to be 7 million by 2020. whether it's people looking to earn extra money, those tired of their 9-to-5, or entrepreneurs looking to grow their side hustle, entrepreneur is uniquely qualified to guide a new generation of bold individuals looking to live their best lives and make it happen on their own terms. whatever industry or jobs this new workforce takes, start your own business will guide them through the first three years of business. they'll gain the know-how of more than 30 years of collective advice from those who've come before them to: avoid analysis paralysis when launching a business test ideas in the real world before going to market with insights from gary vaynerchuk decide between building, buying, or becoming a distributor know what to consider when looking for funding from venture capitalists, loans, cash advances, etc. decide if a coworking space is the right move get tips on running successful facebook and google ads as part of a marketing campaign use micro-influencers to successfully promote your brand on social media

In chris guillebeau's travel to over 175 countries, he has met two kinds of people: those like himself who have the time and income to follow their whims and who've created an entertaining and fulfilling life–and those who feel trapped. this second group wants what the first group has, but the big stumbling block is making money. because chris realized that the first group has knowledge to impart, he identified 1500 people worth emulating, and refining that further, he offers here the 50 most valuable and interesting examples of micro-business success. in nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered a way to monetize their personal passions. it's about finding the intersection between what you like to do and what other people will pay for. you don't need an mba, a business plan, or even employees. all you need is a product or service that flows from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.

Lawyers have left a major mark on the startup ecosystem, but perhaps not as you'd imagine. their biggest mark is as founders.in their new book founder, jd, authors eric koester and raffi garnighian examine more than 400 startup founders who have also earned a law degree in order to uncover the surprising impact of their contributions across some of the largest ventures, funds and companies in the startup ecosystem. throughout their research, they uncover a treasure trove of stories from some of the most successful lawyers-turned-founders and share an effective framework for how lawyers and law students can leverage their legal skills, experiences and connections to make their own similar leap into the startup world.as founder, jds themselves, koester and garnighian share real world insights from other successful founder, jds including: *removing the stigma lawyers often face when entering the business world, * leveraging the power of thinking like a lawyer, and* unlocking the keys to making one's startup a success in ventures inside and outside the legal professio

#1 new york times bestseller – “this book delivers completely new and refreshing ideas on how to create value in the world.”—mark zuckerberg, ceo of meta “peter thiel has built multiple breakthrough companies, and zero to one shows how.”—elon musk, ceo of space – x and tesla – the great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or silicon valley. progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. it comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself. – doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. but when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. the next bill gates will not build an operating system. the next larry page or sergey brin won’t make a search engine. tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. they will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique. – zero to one presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in america and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.

Two successful startup founders offer a comprehensive overview of the various ways startups can achieve strong, sustainable growth, and a guide to choosing the ones that will make the differencce. why do so many startups fail? they make the fatal mistake of putting all their effort into perfecting their product at the cost of reaching out to potential users. instead, they should be putting half their resources into getting traction. traction is the essential guide for any startup looking to stay ahead of the curve and start building a user base early in the game. the book offers no one-size-fits-all solution: every startup is unique, so no single method is guaranteed to generate traction. instead, the authors identify nineteen different traction channels from viral marketing to trade shows, offer insights on how to exploit each one to its fullest potential, and provide a framework to test various channels and identify the best one for any startup. drawing on advice from more than 40 successful startup founders and marketers, from wikipedia s jimmy wales to american apparel s ryan holiday, traction is a comprehensive textbook for marketing your way to growth."

"most startups are built to fail. but those failures, according to entrepreneur eric ries, are preventable. startups don't fail because of bad execution, or missed deadlines, or blown budgets. they fail because they are building something nobody wants. whether they arise from someone's garage or are created within a mature fortune 500 organization, new ventures, by definition, are designed to create new products or services under conditions of extreme uncertainly. one of the central premises of the lean startup movement is what ries calls "validated learning" about the customer.

More than 100,000 entrepreneurs rely on this book. the national science foundation pays hundreds of startup teams each year to follow the process outlined in the book, and it's taught at stanford, berkeley, columbia and more than 100 other leading universities worldwide. why? the startup owner's manual guides you, step-by-step, as you put the customer development process to work. this method was created by renowned silicon valley startup expert steve blank, co-creator with eric ries of the lean startup movement and tested and refined by him for more than a decade. this 608-page how-to guide includes over 100 charts, graphs, and diagrams, plus 77 valuable checklists that guide you as you drive your company toward profitability. the startup owner s manual was originally published by k&s ranch publishing inc. and is now available from wiley. the cover, design, and content are the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product.

"how today's entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically succesful businesses" test your ideas before you bet the bank on them. don''t listen to what focus groups say; watch what your customers do. start with a modest offering and build on the aspects of it that prove valuable. expect to get it wrong and stay flexible and solvent enough to try again and again until you get it right.

Founder's faq is an authentic guide for founders by revealing what works and what doesn't in the predictable journey of the startup. it covers the answers to all the possible questions of a founder in a startup journey–whether revealing lifesaving principles for the startup's survival path, building a+ teams, creating an evolving machine, setting up a neat culture, or interpreting the true path for the fundraising. all the chapters of the book are packed with real-life examples; from founders who scaled their startups and exited, investors of airbnb, coinbase, deliveroo, gusto, hubspot, instacart, kayak, lyft, opendoor, robinhood, slack, snapchat, snowflake, square, stripe, twilio, udemy, to sales, marketing, and product leaders of high-growth startups. this enables you to merge practical knowledge with reality. it can undoubtedly be read cover-to-cover but invites you to open up to any page and digest a quick lesson.

An essential guide to equip the next generation of founders with the mindset and tools they need to take the leap to become globally successful entrepreneurs.featuring a foreword by reid hoffman, founder of linkedin, this fascinating handbook inspires potential founders and provides essential guidance and advice for people who want to create their own start-up and build a successful company. this book answers the question “how do i get started?” it takes the reader from making the decision to plunge into entrepreneurship, through the process of choosing and developing an idea and team, all the way to raising capital and working with vcs and angel investors. alice bentinck and matt clifford are the co-founders of entrepreneur first (ef). over the last decade, they have worked with thousands of ambitious individuals across the world, supporting them to become founders. those individuals have now built companies worth billions of dollars that are taking on some of the world's biggest challenges, including finding hard-to-spot cancers, tackling climate change and building new financial platforms. in how to be a founder, the authors share advice, insights and lessons from their decade of experience working with individuals to become successful founders. the book covers what you need to do today to start your journey as a founder and the steps to take to maximise your chances of building a high-growth, scalable company. you'll also hear advice from some of the world's best investors and entrepreneurs who have built some of most iconic technology companies of our time.

"a new roadmap for building sustainable startups that last beyond the hype. as more and more cracks form in the myth of the vc-funded, ipo-driven billion-dollar company–they're not profitable, and are unethically run to boot–entrepreneurs are seeking an alternative path to building useful, sustainable, and sane businesses. the minimalist entrepreneur is the manifesto for a new generation of entrepreneurs who would rather build great companies than big ones. in 2011, sahil lavingia left his position as the second hire at pinterest to chase his own dream of founding a billion-dollar company. his startup, gumroad, was growing quickly and raising venture capital easily. gumroad, a platform connecting creators with sellers, seemed like it was on the road to unicorn status, with the fancy offices and rapid hiring to match. until one quarter, when growth faltered, and everything crumbled. but lavingia rebuilt gumroad from the ground up. in contrast to the waste and hypergrowth-for-growth's sake mentality that characterized his first attempt, he became a minimalist entrepreneur. weaving together his own experience at gumroad with stories of other likeminded companies, he offers a new roadmap for entrepreneurs choosing to grow meaningfully over growing unsustainably. unicorns are not the best or only path for a startup.

If you're a desktop, mobile or web developer, this book is your blueprint to getting your startup off the ground with no outside investment. – this book intentionally avoids topics restricted to venture-backed startups such as: honing your investment pitch, securing funding, and figuring out how to use the piles of cash investors keep placing in your lap. – this book assumes: you don't have $6m of investor funds sitting in your bank account – you're not going to relocate to the handful of startup hubs in the world – you're not going to work 70 hour weeks for low pay with the hope of someday making millions from stock options – there's nothing wrong with pursuing venture funding and attempting to grow fast like amazon, google, twitter, and facebook. it just so happened that most people are not in a place to do this. – start small, stay small also focuses on the single most important element of a startup that most developers avoid: marketing. there are many great resources for learning how to write code, organize source control, or connect to a database. this book does not cover the technical aspects developers already know or can learn elsewhere.

In 2017 34% of the workforce was considered part of the gig economy. this growing workforce of freelancers and side-giggers is also estimated to grow to 43% by 2020. that's 4 million freelancers, soon to be 7 million by 2020. whether it's people looking to earn extra money, those tired of their 9-to-5, to entrepreneurs looking to grow their side hustle, entrepreneur is uniquely qualified to guide a new generation of bold individuals looking to live their best lives and make it happen on their own terms. whatever industry or jobs this new workforce takes, start your own business will guide them through the first three years of business. they'll gain the know-how of more than thirty years of collective advice from those who've come before them to: – how to avoid analysis paralysis when launching a business – tips for testing ideas in the real-world before going to market with insights from gary vaynerchuk – decide between building, buying, or becoming a distributor – what to consider when looking for funding from venture capitalists, loans, cash advances, etc. – whether or not a co-working space is a right move – tips on running successful facebook and google ads as part of a marketing campaign – use micro-influencers to successfully promote your brand on social media

In 2017 34% of the workforce was considered part of the gig economy. this growing workforce of freelancers and side-giggers is also estimated to grow to 43% by 2020. that's 4 million freelancers, soon to be 7 million by 2020. whether it's people looking to earn extra money, those tired of their 9-to-5, to entrepreneurs looking to grow their side hustle, entrepreneur is uniquely qualified to guide a new generation of bold individuals looking to live their best lives and make it happen on their own terms. whatever industry or jobs this new workforce takes, start your own business will guide them through the first three years of business. they'll gain the know-how of more than thirty years of collective advice from those who've come before them to: – how to avoid analysis paralysis when launching a business – tips for testing ideas in the real-world before going to market with insights from gary vaynerchuk – decide between building, buying, or becoming a distributor – what to consider when looking for funding from venture capitalists, loans, cash advances, etc. – whether or not a co-working space is a right move – tips on running successful facebook and google ads as part of a marketing campaign – use micro-influencers to successfully promote your brand on social media

In the $100 startup, chris guillebeau shows you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose – and earn a good living. still in his early thirties, chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he's already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he's never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back. there are many others like chris – those who've found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful. sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn't depend on shelving what you currently do. you can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful. in preparing to write this book, chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he's chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. in nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment. here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who've learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment. it's all about finding the intersection between your “expertise” – even if you don't consider it such — and what other people will pay for. you don't need an mba, a business plan or even employees. all you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid. not content to talk in generalities, chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick. among chris's key principles: if you're good at one thing, you're probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish – sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins. in ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold. this remarkable book will start you on your way.

In the $100 startup, chris guillebeau shows you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose – and earn a good living. still in his early thirties, chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he's already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he's never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back. there are many others like chris – those who've found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful. sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn't depend on shelving what you currently do. you can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful. in preparing to write this book, chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he's chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. in nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment. here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who've learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment. it's all about finding the intersection between your “expertise” – even if you don't consider it such — and what other people will pay for. you don't need an mba, a business plan or even employees. all you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid. not content to talk in generalities, chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick. among chris's key principles: if you're good at one thing, you're probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish – sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins. in ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold. this remarkable book will start you on your way.

This is your foolproof guide on how to make your start-up stand out from the crowd! get professional business advice in the palm of your hands. this uniquely visual guide equips you with everything you need to know about setting up and running your own business. are you looking to start a business? you'll need advice on how to identify your customer, what pitfalls to anticipate, and how best to spend your time and money to turn your idea into a profitable venture. this insightful business book takes you through everything from balancing the books to building a brand. it inspires you to take that giant leap towards making your entrepreneurial dreams come true. the simplest, most visual guide to becoming an entrepreneur – ever! this comprehensive guide to starting your own business acts as an invaluable blueprint for your path to business success. it's the ultimate gift for entrepreneurs or anyone who wants to learn more about the world of business management. this informative reference book is packed with: – practical, authoritative information on the skills required to run a small business. – easy-to-understand graphics. – no-nonsense advice and jargon-free language. – insightful and inspiring quotes from the most successful minds in business. this entrepreneur book gives you all the tools you need to understand how a modern start-up works and then start your own. whether you're a ceo or an aspiring tech entrepreneur, the information and advice in how to start your own business can be applied to anyone. complete the series: this guide to setting up a small business is part of the how it works series from dk books. expand your knowledge about business and management even further with how business works and how management works.