My Favorite Books for Starting & Scaling Up

A founder's bookshelf: fewer miracles, more margin notes.

December 11, 2017 · Topics: startups, product management

I’ve quite enjoyed going back over books I’ve read and recalling what I learned from all of them, from time to time. I figured it was time to post them somewhere in case it helps anyone else. I’ll continue to add new books to this list, and contribute additional notes as I review them–but here’s how I recall them at the moment which is in most cases, many years after reading them.

My thoughts of course, are just my humble opinion.

My “Must-Reads” for Entrepreneurs of Any Stage

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries The best, most generally applicable advice I’ve ever come by is to identify and check all your assumptions as frequently as possible, and this book spells out how to do this in a very practical way.
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and‎ Amy Wallace This was a page-turner for me — how advanced technology could blend with the liberal arts.
Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio There are so many things I learned from Ray Dalio, it’s tough to sum up. Just read it!
A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer and‎ Charles Fishman Entrepreneurship is rooted in deep curiosity, and this is a fantastic book about just that topic.
The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin Entrepreneurship is rooted in deep curiosity, and this is a fantastic book about just that topic.
Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) by Chade-Meng Tan Entrepreneurship is an emotional rollercoaster, requiring the entrepreneur to be able to handle large amounts of anxiety; I found this helpful in my own journey.
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell Maybe it’s nostalgia, but these 21 ‘laws’ I learned 15 years ago still apply really well today.
Nonviolent Communication: Create Your Life, Your Relationships, and Your World in Harmony with Your Values by Marshall Rosenberg The best book I’ve ever come across for when it comes to communicating with others; ignore the ‘violence’ implication in the title.

Before Product Market Fit

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters Thiel is like an Oracle — I really like “The Secret” concept he talks about in this book.
The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard, Spencer Johnson Every entrepreneur will need to manage, not just lead; and this is as reasonable introduction as any.
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone A story of grit, which is definitely what you need as an entrepreneur.
Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup by Brad Feld, David Cohen If you’ve read a lot of startup books, you can skip this, but for those who haven’t started a company before, it has lots of practical tips.
Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne While perhaps a little bit long for the point it makes, I find that many entrepreneurs end up in red oceans, rather than setting themselves up for blue ones.
Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston What I remember of it, is that it’s a really fun read!

After Product Market Fit, Before Huge Rounds

Inside Apple: How America’s Most Admired — and Secretive — Company Really Works by Adam Lashinsky As employees start to specialize, there are some great tips in this book for how to do it. It doesn’t hurt that I loved the Apple from this time in history.
Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard P. Rumelt When companies start to get bigger, they can start off competing on the wrong foot; I like to see companies that get this right in their DNA early on.
Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate by Brian McDonald Evangelism is so important at this point — internally and externally. Use the principals in this short book to tell a compelling story!
The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation by Jay Elliot + Leading Apple With Steve Jobs: Management Lessons From a Controversial Genius by Jay Elliot I thoroughly enjoyed both these books, but I’m a total Jobs fanboy.
The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Brian Merchant A good example of how products are created behind the scenes by entire teams; not just a single genius.
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber Start getting the mundane details out of the way and into processes. But don’t let process get in the way of innovation.

After the Huge Round

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, Chris Fussell Uninformative title, but great tips on how when your company gets to be more than 50 people, it’s important to keep teammates on the ground armed with full context.
Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t, Rockefeller Habits 2.0 by Verne Harnish Practical tips on how to keep teams motivated, and practical tips to run on a day to day basis.
Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz, Joanne Gordon How to fix things when the company goes off its original path.
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek This book should be obvious, but I’ve worked with enough big companies where this hasn’t been the case, so I gotta include it.
Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by James C. Collins, Jerry I. Porras + Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins Such classics that you just have to buck up and read them, because it’s all common vocabulary now!