25 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read
Reading matters, whether you want to grow as a person or simply sharpen the way you communicate and see the world day to day. Read regularly and you gain fresh perspectives, learn from other people's experiences and take their lessons on board. There are plenty of books that can add a great deal to your skills as an entrepreneur: they can open up new ways of thinking or help you see your likely mistakes coming. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to keep learning and keep digging.
Success stories, personal development books, books that hand you a new and different point of view… So which books should entrepreneurs read?
1. Why We Buy – Paco Underhill
In this book Underhill digs deep into what draws a customer into a shop, and also what makes them walk out without buying anything. A genuinely useful read.
2. Purple Cow – Seth Godin
Godin argues that what really counts is not so much the quality of what you do as "being remarkable". When you are just another part of a system that has gone
monotonous, he explains, in a very entertaining way, how to come out of it successfully instead of going under.
3. Girişimci Kafasıyla Düşün [Think Like an Entrepreneur] – Kaan Gülten
"Girişimci Kafasıyla Düşün" is a ground-breaking book that brings together Kaan Gülten's wide experience as an entrepreneur and the innovative perspective of super intelligence. Published by Ceres Yayınları, it covers a broad range of topics, from time management to digital marketing and from crisis management to growth hacking strategies. A valuable guide for entrepreneurs, it is packed with practical advice and inspiring insights that will help readers succeed.
4. The Lean Startup – Eric Ries
By applying the principles of lean manufacturing and management to entrepreneurship, Eric Ries founded the Lean Startup philosophy and, in doing so, rewrote the rulebook for starting a business.
Ries defines a startup as a group of people, or an organisation, dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. That could be a handful of young people working flat out in a student flat, or seasoned professionals in the boardroom of a star company. What entrepreneurs have in common, in this sense, is that they plunge into a fog of uncertainty and try to find a successful path to a sustainable business.
The book urges entrepreneurs at every stage to adopt, before it is too late, a way of constantly testing their vision, and to act on what they learn. At a time when companies need to innovate more than ever, it offers a scientific method for building successful ventures.
5. The 80/20 Principle – Richard Koch
We work so hard, so why don't things turn out the way we want? And how on earth did we hit that sales figure we never saw coming, almost overnight? Are we wasting time and effort on things of no value? Perhaps it is time to get rid of the clutter that keeps us busy at work and at home. Richard Koch reveals the secret: 80 per cent of results come from 20 per cent of causes. Find that 20 per cent and your life will change for ever.
6. The $100 Startup – Chris Guillebeau
In this book Chris Guillebeau sums up beautifully how to become a successful entrepreneur without burning through your budget.
7. Zero to One – Peter Thiel
Do you have a startup idea on the scale of Facebook, Microsoft, PayPal, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or WhatsApp, but no idea how to bring it to life?
Peter Thiel, the entrepreneur who co-founded PayPal and was one of Facebook's investors, answers that question in this book.
Thiel starts with a highly unusual claim about the age we live in: "However miraculous our little mobile devices may seem, we actually live in a time of technological stagnation." Information technology is, of course, advancing fast every day, but why should progress be confined to Silicon Valley or to computers?
8. Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich in 1937, the result of 25 years of research into 500 highly successful people, including well-known names such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Its 13-step formula will give you a wealth of experience on the road to success.
9. The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
With a sharp mind and a remarkable gift for expression, Charles Duhigg explains, in an enjoyable way, why habits exist and how they can be changed, offering a whole new perspective on human nature. You will see that the key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising great children, becoming more productive, building innovative companies and achieving success lies in understanding how habits work.
You will learn that habits are not destiny, and how you can use Charles Duhigg's method to transform your working and personal life.
Visiting the laboratories of neuroscientists who study what lies behind our habits at home and at work, you will discover how big a part the right habits played in the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and civil rights hero Martin Luther King.
10. Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert T. Kiyosaki & Sharon L. Lechter
This is the excellent book in whose introduction Robert writes: "Why is it that people struggle financially, yet spend all those years at school learning nothing about money? In the end they learn to work for money, but never learn how to make money work for them." Make no mistake: it is a very useful book that could change the way you see things.
11. Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
Why are some people more successful than others?
Outliers explains what the Beatles and Bill Gates have in common, the secret behind Asian students' extraordinary success in maths, the hidden advantages of star athletes, why the CVs of New York's top lawyers all look the same, and why you have never even heard of the cleverest man in the world. All of it is explained in terms of generation, family, culture and class.
Gladwell argues that if you want to be a Silicon Valley billionaire, the year you were born matters a great deal, and if you want to be a successful pilot, so does where you were born. The lives of outliers, people who achieve success far beyond normal expectations, follow a strange and unexpected logic. In making that logic simple, Gladwell offers an exciting blueprint for getting the most out of your own potential.
12. How Google Works – Jonathan Rosenberg and Eric Schmidt
So how is Google, the world's fastest-growing, most admired and most talked-about company, actually run? Written by two of Google's top executives, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Senior Vice President of Products Jonathan Rosenberg, this book topped bestseller lists around the world. It tells the story of how Google's values and company culture turned it into a world-leading organisation.
Offering fresh approaches to strategy, talent management, decision-making, communication and innovation, How Google Works uses plenty of case studies to show how a global giant is run.
Written by Google's two most senior executives, it is a true bedside book for anyone who follows the latest trends in management and marketing, wonders how to grow and strengthen their company, dreams of starting their own business, wants to climb the career ladder, believes in teamwork, and wants to develop alongside the best in their field.
13. Start with Why – Simon Sinek
People don't buy "what" you sell; they buy "why" you do it!
Manipulating people is easy. But it does not bring lasting success, either for organisations or for individuals. Great leaders do not manipulate the people around them; they inspire them and create an environment in which they can grow. They build teams of people who are driven not by rules or orders but by inspiration and their own inner motivation. Start everything with a "why". Make your purpose, your cause and your belief in the work clear. When your "why" is consistent with "what" you do and "how" you do it, people trust you and stay loyal to you.
14. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future – Ashlee Vance
This book is the extraordinary story of a young entrepreneur, born in 1971, whose companies challenged the established order in the car, aerospace and energy industries.
Elon Musk co-founded X.com and PayPal, and later, with Tesla, produced superb all-electric cars with a 600 km range that go from 0 to 100 km/h in just 2.3 seconds. With SpaceX he took on the world's giants by slashing the cost of space transport, and created the company most likely to send humans to Mars in the near future. He is also chairman and the largest shareholder of SolarCity, the biggest solar energy company in the United States.
Ashlee Vance spoke to nearly 300 people and spent more than 30 hours in one-to-one interviews with Elon Musk to bring readers this striking and inspiring life story. The obstacles faced by a man who has devoted his life to freeing the world from its dependence on fossil fuels, and his great successes, will motivate entrepreneurs, engineers, politicians, educators and young people who dream of a better future.
15. Failed It! – Erik Kessels
Advice on turning mistakes into good ideas and succeeding by failing. Let's face it: we have all failed. Maybe not on a grand scale, but one way or another we have all made a mess of things. Whether it is a small setback, a total disaster or a misfortune somewhere in between, we count every kind of mistake as failure. If something ends in failure, someone is in trouble. Yet the mistakes made on the road to failure can actually be the first steps towards success. This book teaches you that you need the courage to make mistakes, and the nerve to risk looking a fool, if you want to create something truly unique. In short, mistakes should inspire you, not fill you with regret. Just change your perspective and see what wonders await you. The results will surprise everyone, because real creativity can never be predicted. So, whatever the outcome, at the end of the day you will lean back with your hands behind your head, put your feet up and say: "Wow, I did it… and by failing, too!"
16. The Personal MBA – Josh Kaufman
While even elite schools such as Harvard and Stanford get no further than teaching outdated PowerPoint presentations and needless financial models that fail to meet the needs of our time, Kaufman shows you how a business really works. In this book you will find the core principles of production, sales and marketing that you need to succeed, along with the finer points of human psychology, teamwork and building systems.
Josh Kaufman, the self-taught maverick professor of modern business education, tore up the textbooks and helped hundreds of thousands of people around the world learn the most fundamental business concepts on their own. Now he brings together entrepreneurship, marketing, sales, negotiation, production, productivity and much more in a single book. The Personal MBA turns the most valuable business lessons into simple, effective mental models that will help you overcome the challenges you meet in real life.
17. Tribes – Seth Godin
A tribe is any group of people, large or small, connected to one another, to a leader and to an idea. For thousands of years, people have joined religious, ethnic, political and even musical tribes. It is in our nature. Who is going to lead all these tribes?
The web can do amazing things, but it cannot provide leadership. That has to come from people like you, people who are passionate about something. Everything you need to make a difference right now is already within reach.
Today the internet has removed the barriers of geography, cost and time. Blogs and social networks are helping existing tribes grow larger and new ones to emerge. These tribes are made up of millions of people who embrace their iPhones, a political campaign or a new way of fighting global warming.
Tribes will push you to think (really think) about the opportunities in front of you to lead your employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists and readers… It isn't easy, but it is probably easier than you think.
18. To Sell Is Human – Daniel H. Pink
"Some of you are literally in sales: you are trying to persuade customers to buy an insurance policy or a mobile phone, or you are marketing your fresh home-made cakes. But all of you spend more time than you would guess steering colleagues, finding investors or talking children round. So, like it or not, we are all in sales."
In his new book Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind, turns to the world of selling. As in his earlier books, he backs up his insights with rich social science research, and writes a new ABC of selling for a world in which the sell-at-any-cost mentality has had its day.
In this book you will find the social dynamics behind the shift from information asymmetry to information parity, six new ways to pitch effectively, three rules for understanding others, five frames for getting your message across better, and more. Offering new ways to move people to action, To Sell Is Human is a guide that will transform your working and personal life.
19. Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Kahneman, awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his ground-breaking psychological work questioning rational judgement and decision-making, is one of the most important thinkers of our time. His ideas have influenced many fields, including economics, medicine and politics, and in this book he brings together the results of decades of research. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation, he teaches us when we can and cannot trust our intuition, and when slow thinking serves us better. He shows how we make choices at work and in our personal lives, and how to use different techniques to guard against the mental errors that so often land us in trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will change the way you think about thinking for ever.
20. HBR Entrepreneur's Handbook – Harvard Business Review
This book presents entrepreneurship as a straight line, starting with the question "Am I the kind of person who can start a business?" and running all the way to the question a successful owner eventually has to ask: "How do I cash out my investment in the company I built and grew?" Your own experience will most likely differ from these simple frameworks, because entrepreneurship is an adventure that moves forward through repetition. The Entrepreneur's Handbook gives a good overview of the problems you are most likely to face and the right approaches to take when you do.
21. How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
In this book Dale Carnegie shares vital lessons that have stood the test of time and have helped people succeed in business and everyday life for decades. One of its most striking lines is: "There is room at the top for everyone. You just have to know how to get there!"
22. Rework – David H. Hansson, Jason Fried
"This is a different kind of business book, written for different kinds of readers, from those who have never even thought about starting a company to people who already run successful ones." It holds vital lessons for entrepreneurs large and small, for creatives, for people who have devoted their lives to their companies, and even for those who have never considered starting one.
23. Managing in a Time of Great Change – Peter Drucker
Described as the most influential mind of all time in management theory and practice, Drucker was regarded for more than half a century as "the youngest mind in the world". A management genius whose influence ran deep not only in business but also in government and civil society, he asks the most important management questions of our day in this book and gives the most compelling answers.
24. Business Model Generation – Yves Pigneur, Alexander Osterwalder
How Do You Create New and Inventive Business Models?
Business Model Generation teaches the powerful, practical innovation techniques used by the world's leading companies. With this book you will learn how to design a new business model and bring it to life, and how to analyse or renew an old one. Executives, consultants, entrepreneurs and leaders ready to embrace new and inventive models will find powerful, simple and tested tools here for understanding, designing, revising and implementing business models.
Co-created with 470 Strategy Practitioners
Written with contributions from 470 Business Model Canvas practitioners in 42 countries, the book was financed and produced independently of the traditional publishing industry. It uses a highly integrated, visual and accessible design so that readers learn something from the very first page.
25. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini
Influence is a reference book that reveals the inner workings of persuading and being persuaded in every area of life. Drawing on laboratory experiments and real-life experience, Prof. Robert B. Cialdini's book has reached 250,000 readers worldwide. Cialdini explains, in plain language, how to become persuasive at work, in business, in marketing, in everyday life and in love.
