5 Practical Book Recommendations for Tech Entrepreneurs
I'm an avid reader. I read mostly non-fiction books, although well written sci-fi novels are a guilty pleasure.
There are plenty of great business related books out there. But I've always found it difficult to find books that are highly practical for early stage technology entrepreneurs. As a founder starting a new company, what I wanted most out of these types of books was a manual of valuable, actionable lessons learned by seasoned startup veterans that I could apply almost immediately to my startup in a useful way.
Business favourites like Good to Great by Jim Collins or Winning by Jack Welsch are excellent reads, but more directly applicable to corporate managers and leaders in large companies. As an entrepreneur, instead of always trying to relate lessons read about corporate business into the startup landscape I found myself often craving that feeling of: "Hey, this author is speaking to me!"
With that in mind I'd like to share the 5 actionable books for early stage tech entrepreneurs that top my list:
Hard hitting advice over every major area of the startup, from identifying a problem to getting your first customers. Particularly applicable to B2B startups. A lot of lessons Adam's talks about I experienced the hard way (i.e. made the mistake), so this book made tons of sense to me. A treasure for early stage startups.
A cogent, thoughtful approach to the venture capital fundraising process that leaves few questions unanswered. If you follow (even some of) the steps in this book before raising capital, the VC you're pitching will thank you--and you will learn a lot too. It's dense, but worth it. (Hat tip to Justin Stanford for first recommending this to me).
Dr. Cialdini literally wrote the book on persuasiveness. This book brilliantly lays out a few powerful principles for influencing people to become customers. After reading this you'll realize why freemium works, why products often highlight user testimonials, why biz dev people need to be likable, and much more. That's just the beginning--this book can be applied to anything that involves people.
Finally, a concisely written book that provides a "How to" manual for getting traffic to your website. This book focuses mainly on SEO related activities, so marketing strategy, branding, paid advertising, PR, buzz generation and viral loop marketing aren't covered. But the topics it does cover are explained perfectly.
Eric Ries teaches a way of analyzing and building a total startup business that is something akin to a scientist doing a controlled experiment, or an engineer building a machine piece by piece. His approach demystifies many aspects of startup building, and is especially useful during the early stage. This is more than a great book, it's a movement sweeping the globe.
Other excellent reads for founders that I recommend are The Essential Drucker, Four Steps to the Epiphany, Founders at Work, The Art of the Start, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Getting Things Done, Do More Faster, and the hugely inspirational Atlas Shrugged.
What are your favourite books for entrepreneurs?