Every nine out of 10 startups fail in their first year.
Avoiding this fate may be hard, but not impossible. Certainly not when you are armed with the knowledge from these 30 best startup books for entrepreneurs.
As you might know from the countless lists of tips and tricks about startup survivability, reading is one of the easiest and fastest ways of learning from the experiences of others. The only problem is that too many books come out and you as a startup owner have limited time to decide which are the best startup books to read.
To make things easy for you, I decided to find the best books about startups and entrepreneurship. This is a growing list, so bookmark this article and come back in a couple of months to check out the new startup books on the list.
Innovation Books :
Zero to One
Author: Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
Category: Innovation
Peter Thiel takes an unconventional approach to building startups. The common approach is to iterate the same idea and launch it to a different market segment. The usual ideas tend to be about the next WhatsApp, Facebook, or a “new and better” Microsoft.
In his book Zero to One, Peter says these clones already exist in the market and making a new clone won’t take you further up the innovation ladder. When people repeat the ideas, they take the innovation level from one to ‘N’. But doing something that isn’t done before takes the world from zero to one.
The Innovator’s Dilemma
Author: Clayton M. Christensen
Category: Innovation
The Innovator’s Dilemma is one of the best books for entrepreneurs as it changed the state of corporate America. Surprising, isn’t that? It simply asked:
‘Why do businesses fail even after doing everything right?’
And explains the answer…
It has remained a best seller for over a decade and is written especially for entrepreneurs, managers, and CEOs, sharing wisdom and warnings for businesses.
Founders at Work
Author: Jessica Livingston
Category: Innovation
The game runners at Apple, Microsoft, Google, and even Whatsapp were just a bunch of folks like you. Today, they are founders of multi-billion dollar companies.
What led to this change? How did they manage to convince investors to back their ideas? Did they make any mistakes? If so, how did they recover? Founders At Work is a collection of interviews with the founders of top tech companies that answer these questions.
Crossing the Chasm
Author: Geoffrey A. Moore and
Category: InnovationWant to read the bible for bringing tech products to progressively larger markets? Crossing the Chasm is the book for you. It provides new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing with special emphasis on the internet. The book is a must-read for anyone with a stake in the world’s most exciting marketplaces.
Screw it, Let’s do it
Author: Richard Branson
Category: InnovationSir Richard Branson is the CEO of Virgin group of companies. He heads more than 400 companies and in this book, he reveals his secrets, of life and business. If there is one lesson that he wants you to learn by reading Screw it Let’s do it, it is: If you believe it can be done, try and try again until you can do it. It is undoubtedly, one of the best books about startup and entrepreneurship.
Start Something That Matters
Author: Joan Salge Blake
Category: Innovation
Learn from a man who never worn shoes but started the fastest-growing footwear company. Blake Mycoskie shares his story of how he build a multi-billion company in less than ten years and brought a new business model of success in his book: Start Something That Matters.
Never Too Late to Startup
Author: Rob Kornblum
Category: Innovation
Is it even possible to break free from the corporate race? – Most employees in the middle of the career often think this $100M question.Never Too Late to Startup by venture capitalist Rob Kornblum is one of the best books for entrepreneurs as it answers the above question by interviewing a dozen mid-life founders. It is a great business book for an entrepreneur that tells how you can find a great idea, how to lower the risk of starting a business, and how to get ideal co-founders for your business.