No one can think of everything and besides, you’re growing a business so take advantage of the best the entrepreneurial community has to offer. Whether you read each book cover to cover or just use them for reference they represent ideas and techniques that will see you through the dark days every entrepreneurs face at some point.
The Four Steps to the Epiphany – Steve Blank. Provides hands-on instructions on how to go about customers, sales, marketing and building your company at different stages of your business.
The Innovator’s Dilemma – Clayton Christensen. Explains why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. Provides a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.
The Lean Startup – Eric Ries. How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses.
Lean Analytics – Eric Ries. Shows you how to validate your initial idea, find the right customers, decide what to build, how to monetize your business, and how to spread the word.
The Strategy Paradox – Michael Raynor. Explains a ubiquitous but little-understood tradeoff. The tradeoff is that most strategies are built on specific beliefs about an unpredictable future, but current strategic approaches force leaders to commit to an inflexible strategy regardless of how the future might unfold.
Strategyzer Series Books. I lie, there are more than 9 books but the following are so closely related that I think of them as one big book. They are invaluable in starting, maintaining and growing any business.
Business Model Generation teaches you how to systematically understand, design and differentiate your business model.
Value Proposition Design helps you tackle a core challenge of every business – creating compelling products and services customers want to buy.
Testing Business Ideas explains how to increase the success of any venture by providing a practical guide to rapid experimentation.
High-Impact Tools for Teams explains how to boost alignment, accountability and get results in fast-paced, uncertain and complex projects.
Invincible Company Create a capability for constant reinvention by managing a portfolio of new ideas. Compete on superior business models not product, technology and price. Transcend industry boundaries.
The Startup Owner’s Manual – Steve Blank. A step-by-step, near-encyclopedic reference manual or “how to” for building a successful, scalable startup.
How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie. A timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.
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