Top 10 Books for Startups

The one thing that defines success for both seasoned entrepreneurs and startup founders is the never-ending effort taken toward development. Information is the first step tool that helps in one’s development and the best way to gain information was and still is by reading books. It’s no secret that if you want to learn more, you have to read more. There is no perfect idea and there’s no perfect book and when it comes to entrepreneurship; some books inspire and motivate while others instruct and explain.

 

Here are 10 fundamentally different books that every startup can benefit from:

 

1-    The Lean Startup

                            

One of the best-selling books for startup businesses, The Lean Startup begins with the experience of the author himself. His premise is that entrepreneurs should start treating their startup like an experiment. The book’s approach is focused on helping businesses increase their capital efficiency and to utilize human creativity to its full potential. Furthermore, the book explains, with perfect clarity, complex concepts like vanity metrics and validated learning. The Lean Startup puts forward tools, methods, and new ideas that can help businesses become more agile, flexible, and successful.

 

2-    Zero to One

                         

The author is well-known as one of the co-founders of PayPal and one of the first investors in Facebook. His book Zero to One has become a firm favorite for founders who are daring and full of new ideas, and those who like to think out-of-the-box. This book is replete with challenging ideas backed up by compelling justifications that are hard to overlook.

 While Zero to One is mainly targeted at technology startups, this book offers plenty of ideas and lessons to take away. The book portrays a novel way of thinking about innovation and it teaches one to learn to ask the questions that lead to finding value in unexpected places.

 

3-    Hacking Growth:

How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success

             

Penned down by two industry specialists, this book is the complete package, offering a comprehensive toolkit that any company or industry can utilize to implement their own Growth Hacking strategy. This book covers everything, from how to set up and run growth teams, how to identify and rest growth levers, and how to evaluate and act on results. Hacking Growth is a book that teaches to focus on customers- how to reach them, retain them, engage them, and monetize them – as opposed to just focusing on products.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4-    Hooked

 

Based on the author’s years of consulting, research, and practical experience, Hooked is a book startups should read if they’re looking to build a product that focuses heavily on user engagement. The book offers a helpful how-to guide for building better products and not just abstract theory.

Hooked is full of fascinating discussions and the best one of them all is understanding how our emotions drive our behaviour, giving startups an in-depth understanding of how products influence our behavior. This understanding can lead startups to potential success.

 

 

 

 

5-    Start with Why

                              

A worldwide bestseller, this book helps answer questions most startups usually have. Questions like: Why are some organizations are more innovative than others? What is common among the managers of successful companies? Start with Why explains these questions and a number of other queries through examples from the past.

The book analyses leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Steve Jobs, and the Wright brothers and draws attention that they all thought in the same way – they all started with why. The author skillfully highlights the similarities between these personalities that eventually lead to their success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6-    The Checklist Manifesto

                               

In this book, the author cleverly shows how a simple checklist can reveal the complexities of our lives and how to deal with them. The book talks about how we always strive for betterment in everything and still fail. The author makes a compelling case by stating that we can do better by using the simplest methods and skillsets.

He terms this as the ‘checklist’ and through inspirational stories and thought-provoking incidents, the author states that through checklists, we can improve and bring about a massive change in our mindset, life, and work.

 

 

 

 

 

7-    Building a Story Brand

                             

The New York Times best-selling author shared the seven universal elements of powerful stories in this book to help teach startups on how to improve the methods used to connect with customers and to grow a business as well.

The book outlines the StoryBrand Framework - the seven-part process that will clarify a message, organize thoughts, simplify marketing, and grow a business. This book will change the way entrepreneurs perceive their business and the way they conduct it.

 

Whether you are the director of a  company or the owner of a  startup, this book will change the way you portray yourself and the unique value you can offer to your customers.

 

 

 

 

8-    The MOM Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you

                              

This insightful book lays out the hypothesis that, in the same way, mothers will agree with you out of love, collaborators and bystanders can exaggerate or even lie in a bid to show support.

Asking the opinion of others is not the most reliable method of evaluating ideas. Instead, the book tells entrepreneurs that they must learn how to ask the right questions and find those who are more likely, to be honest. The book offers formulas for avoiding unconstructive data, helping to ask constructive questions, and connecting with customers in a better way. This book is perfect to learn how to work through hype and flattery and find the best ways that will help in organizational improvements

 

9-    Creativity Inc.

 

Named as one of the best books of 2014 by The Huffington Post, Financial Times, Success, Inc., and the Library Journal, this book will give you the tools to work towards breaking the mold and continuously creating great things.

The author, being associated with Pixar throughout his career, knows, all too well, how to boost a newly launched animation studio into an instantly-recognized global brand by inspiring creativity within the company’s culture.

In this book, the author writes about creative strategies that can be achieved through simple changes and creating goals that will bring everyone in a company on a unified path toward success.

 

 10-  Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

                          

In this book, the author, who is a technology product management thought leader, offers readers valuable lessons on how to create a vibrant and successful product organization. Furthermore, he draws attention on how to discover and deliver technology products that customers will love and solutions that will work for a business as a whole.

The book is full of the author’s personal stories as well as profiles of some of the most successful product managers and eminent technology-powered product companies, like Adobe, Apple, BBC, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix.

Inspired is a book that will definitely help startups amplify their own product efforts, creating products the customers will love.