Reading good books is like talking with some of the greatest thinkers of our time, and centuries past.
Reading is particularly important for entrepreneurs. Many authors have spent a lifetime gaining a wealth of knowledge, and learning the lessons in their books the hard way so you don't have to.
These are my favorite books that will help you grow as an entrepreneur. The topics cover a broad spectrum, and you'll find each brings a little something different to the table. There is a link to buy each book, and all of the money earned from Amazon's affiliate program will go to Acumen Fund, a non-profit venture that supports entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Let us know what you think should have made the list in the comments.
The 4-Hour Workweek
Timothy Ferriss
This is a blueprint on how to make more money while working less. Tim Ferriss draws from real life experiences and presents a step-by-step guide to a low-stress high income life.
Reality Check
Guy Kawasaki
Kawasaki helped make Apple a household name. This book gives real-world advice on how to outsmart, outmanage, and outmarket your competition.
Screw Business As Usual
Richard Branson
Business advice from the man who founded and grew Virgin Group to a 21 billion dollar company. Branson suggests you should turn traditional business strategies on their head.
The Startup Owner’s Manual
Steve Blank & Bob Dorf
A step-by-step guide of nearly encyclopedic proportions that teaches how to create a successful company. Learn "new math" for startups, business model canvas, and everything else you need to know.
REWORK
Jason Fried & David H Hansson
A collection of short & aggressive chapters that present counterintuitive ideas with straightforward language. Some learnings: underdo the competition, meetings are toxic, and asap is poison.
Made To Stick
Chip Heath & Dan Heath
Why some ideas thrive and others die. Here you'll learn to make ideas stickier by applying the "human scale principle," using the "velcro theory of memory," and more.
The Thank You Economy
Gary Vaynerchuk
Ecommerce and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk reveals how companies big and small can scale personal, one-on-one attention to their entire customer base.
Trust Agents
Chris Brogan & Julien Smith
How to build networks of influence to grow your business by combining high-level theory and practical actions through social media. Build influence, reputation, and earn trust.
The Lean Startup
Eric Ries
A guide to allocate your resources as efficiently as possible and how entrepreneurs should use continuous innovation to create successful businesses.
Midas Touch
Donald Trump & Robert Kiyosaki
Through real life stories of success, failure, perseverance, and purpose, you'll learn how these two entrepreneurial icons have gotten rich, while many others haven't.
Getting Things Done
David Allen
A national bestseller from 2002 that remains relevant. Allen's premise: our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax. This book will teach you the art of stress-free productivity.
Crossing The Chasm
Geoffrey Moore
Moore's chasm theory describes how high-tech products initially sell well to tech literate customers, then hit a lull as marketing pros try to cross the chasm to mainstream buyers.
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Dale Carnegie
Published in 1936, this classic has sold over 15 million copies. The learnings are simple: how to win friends, and influence people, and you'll find the skills completely transferable to today's business world.
Poke The Box
Seth Godin
A manifesto by marketing guru Seth Godin. It's a call to action about the initiative you're taking, in your job, or in your life. This is the ultimate kick in the pants to shake up your life.
Escape From Cubicle Nation
Pamela Slim
Slim explores the emotional issues of leaving the corporate world and the nuts and bolts of lauching a business. Drawing from her own career, this will help you wiegh your options and make a successful escape if you decide to...
The Four Steps to the Epiphany
Steve Blank
Learn to write a business, marketing, and sales plan. Also provides step-by-step strategy on how to organize sales, marketing, and BD for a new product or company.
Crush It
Gary Vaynerchuk
Learn to turn your passions and interests into real businesses using social media, passion, transparency, and reactionary business practices.
In The Plex
Steven Levy
Veteran tech reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access into Google HQ and shares his insight. He reveals its key values: speed, openness, experimentation, risk raking, and more.
Good To Great
Jim Collins
Eleven years ago Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" This book is his answer.
The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, and spreads like wildfire. Gladwell explores and illuminates the tipping point phenomenon.
Awaken The Giant Within
Anthony Robbins
Famous motivational speaker, Anthony Robbins, reveals his most effective strategies and techniques to master your emotions, body, relationships, finances, and your life in general.
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High
Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, & Switzler
Entrepreneurs find themselves in crucial conversations on a regular basis, and this book will teach you how to most effectively deal with them.
Founders At Work
Jessica Livingston
This is a series of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the earliest days. Interviews with: Apple, Flickr, PayPal, 37Signals, Gmail, and more.
Linchpin
Seth Godin
There used to be two teams in every workplace: management and labor. Now there's a third team, the linchpins - those indispensable people that get things done.
Economics In One Lesson
Henry Hazlitt
Every entrepreneurs should have basic knowledge of economics. This book is the shortest and surest way to understand basic economics.
Smarter, Faster, Cheaper
David Garland
You'll learn innovative ways to market, promote, and improve your business by way of practical advice as opposed to fluffy theory. This is a smart and fresh book that's easy to digest and put to use immediately.
UnMarketing
Scott Stratten
People don't like getting cold calls and spam. This book will show you how to unlearn the old marketing methods, and teach you to build relationships with your customers and make yourself the logical answer to their needs.
Power Friending
Amber Mac
Amber wants you to think of your audience as your friends and then treat them that way. The Power Friending approaching is all about developing business relationships based on mutual respect and support.
The Innovator’s Dilemma
Clayton M. Christensen
Learn how companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership or disappear altogether. This extremely sharp book presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the disruptive innovation.
The Innovator’s Solution
Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor
The followup book to The Innovator's Dilema published six years later. This beautifully written best seller further explores the ideas and paradoxes presented in the first book.
How To Make Millions With Apps
Chad Mureta
Mureta made millions by starting a successful app business with zero experience, and he explains how you can do it too.
Delivering Happiness
Tony Hsieh
The visionary CEO of Zappos explains how his obsession with corporate culture and customer service lead to unprecedented success.
Worth Every Penny
Sarah Petty & Erin Verbeck
Too many entrepreneurs discount their products to compete with the big guys, but this book argues there's a better way... because your product is 'worth every penny.'
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