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Book library

100 books every founder should know.

The ideas that matter from the best business, startup and thinking books, in our own words, with one small action to try from each. Read the book for the full story.

1. Pick a topic.

2. Read the big idea.

3. Do the small action today.

All (100)Start & validate (13)Solo & small business (10)Strategy (13)Sales & marketing (14)Product (8)Leadership (12)Mindset & focus (12)Money (8)Decisions (10)

Start & validate

The Mom Test

Rob Fitzpatrick

Questions about your idea invite polite lies. Questions about their real past behaviour reveal the truth.

Try this. Ask your next three prospects what they did the last time the problem came up.

Start & validate

The Lean Startup

Eric Ries

Treat a new business as a series of experiments, and measure what you learn rather than what you build.

Try this. Write one experiment with a clear pass or fail number.

Start & validate

The Four Steps to the Epiphany

Steve Blank

Customer discovery comes before product development, and it happens outside the building.

Try this. Book five customer conversations this week.

Start & validate

The Startup Owner’s Manual

Steve Blank, Bob Dorf

A practical step-by-step guide to finding and testing a business model with real customers.

Try this. Pick one chapter and run its exercise on your own idea.

Start & validate

The $100 Startup

Chris Guillebeau

Many small businesses start with little money by combining a skill, a clear offer and a group who wants it.

Try this. Write your offer in one sentence and name who it is for.

Start & validate

Zero to One

Peter Thiel, Blake Masters

Real progress comes from creating something new, and the best businesses dominate a small market first.

Try this. Name the small market you could own completely.

Start & validate

Traction

Gabriel Weinberg, Justin Mares

Reaching customers is as important as the product, and there are many channels to test.

Try this. Choose three channels and test each cheaply for two weeks.

Start & validate

Disciplined Entrepreneurship

Bill Aulet

A 24-step process that takes you from picking a market to building a plan to win it.

Try this. Complete the first step: describe your beachhead market.

Start & validate

Running Lean

Ash Maurya

A method for turning your plan into a short list of risks and testing them quickly.

Try this. Fill in a one-page Lean Canvas and mark the riskiest box.

Start & validate

Talking to Humans

Giff Constable

A short guide to finding people to interview and learning from them.

Try this. Write five interview questions that ask about the past.

Start & validate

Value Proposition Design

Alexander Osterwalder and others

Map what customers want, what hurts them and what helps, then fit your offer to it.

Try this. List three customer pains and the gain you create.

Start & validate

Testing Business Ideas

David Bland, Alexander Osterwalder

A library of experiments, from cheap and quick to strong evidence, for testing a business idea.

Try this. Pick one experiment from the library and run it this week.

Start & validate

Founders at Work

Jessica Livingston

Early stories from many famous founders, showing how messy and uncertain the beginnings are.

Try this. Read one founder story and note the first thing they did.

Solo & small business

Company of One

Paul Jarvis

You can choose to stay small on purpose and build a business around freedom and quality rather than size.

Try this. Decide what enough looks like for you in revenue and hours.

Solo & small business

Rework

Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

A short book arguing for simpler, calmer, profitable ways of building a business.

Try this. Cross one thing off your plan that adds work but not value.

Solo & small business

It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work

Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

A calm company has reasonable hours, fewer meetings and clear boundaries.

Try this. Cancel one recurring meeting this week.

Solo & small business

The Minimalist Entrepreneur

Sahil Lavingia

Start by solving a real problem for a community you belong to, and keep the business small and simple.

Try this. Offer to help a few people in your community for free first.

Solo & small business

Anything You Want

Derek Sivers

A founder shares how he built a company by following his own values and making simple decisions.

Try this. Write down what you would do if you only served customers well.

Solo & small business

The 4-Hour Workweek

Tim Ferriss

Design your work so that you do less of what matters least and automate or hand off the rest.

Try this. List tasks you could stop, automate or delegate.

Solo & small business

Lost and Founder

Rand Fishkin

An honest look at what startup life is like, including the parts that rarely get shared.

Try this. Compare your current plan with the trade-offs the book describes.

Solo & small business

Built to Sell

John Warrillow

A business that depends on you is hard to sell. Make the work repeatable and productised.

Try this. Describe your service as a fixed offer with a fixed scope.

Solo & small business

The E-Myth Revisited

Michael Gerber

Most small businesses fail because the founder is a technician. Build systems so the business runs without you.

Try this. Write down one task as a step-by-step process.

Solo & small business

Profit First

Mike Michalowicz

Take your profit first, then run the business on what is left.

Try this. Set up a separate account and move a small percent of each sale into it.

Strategy

Good Strategy Bad Strategy

Richard Rumelt

A good strategy names the main challenge, chooses a clear approach and takes coherent actions. Goals alone are not strategy.

Try this. Write your biggest challenge in one sentence.

Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy

W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne

Create new demand in uncontested space instead of competing head to head.

Try this. List what to eliminate and what to add compared with competitors.

Strategy

Crossing the Chasm

Geoffrey Moore

Winning early adopters is not enough. You must win one mainstream niche to cross into the wider market.

Try this. Pick one narrow mainstream group to serve first.

Strategy

The Innovator’s Dilemma

Clayton Christensen

Successful companies can miss simpler products that start small and improve.

Try this. Look for customers that bigger firms ignore.

Strategy

Competing Against Luck

Clayton Christensen and others

Understand the job customers hire your product for, and you can predict what they will buy.

Try this. Write the job your best customer hires you for.

Strategy

7 Powers

Hamilton Helmer

Lasting advantage comes from a few specific sources, such as scale, network effects and switching costs.

Try this. Name the one power you could build over three years.

Strategy

Playing to Win

A.G. Lafley, Roger Martin

Strategy is a set of choices about where to play and how to win.

Try this. Answer where you will play and how you will win in one sentence each.

Strategy

Obviously Awesome

April Dunford

Positioning is how you help customers understand what you are, who you are for and why you matter.

Try this. Write your best-fit customer and what makes you different.

Strategy

Good to Great

Jim Collins

Great companies are built through disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action.

Try this. Name the one thing you can be best in the world at.

Strategy

Built to Last

Jim Collins, Jerry Porras

Lasting companies hold a core purpose steady and change nearly everything else.

Try this. Write what you will never change and what you will.

Strategy

Only the Paranoid Survive

Andy Grove

Every business faces moments when the ground shifts, and leaders must notice and act early.

Try this. List the signals that would tell you your market is changing.

Strategy

The Art of War

Sun Tzu

Ancient advice on preparation, timing and avoiding costly fights that still applies to competition.

Try this. Choose a battle where you are clearly stronger.

Strategy

Blitzscaling

Reid Hoffman, Chris Yeh

In some markets, speed matters more than efficiency, and companies should grow before they are ready.

Try this. Decide whether your market rewards being first.

Sales & marketing

Influence

Robert Cialdini

Six principles, such as reciprocity and social proof, shape why people say yes.

Try this. Add real social proof to your sales page.

Sales & marketing

Pre-Suasion

Robert Cialdini

What you say or show just before a request shapes how it is received.

Try this. Improve the first line of your next outreach email.

Sales & marketing

Building a StoryBrand

Donald Miller

Make the customer the hero of the story and your company the guide.

Try this. Rewrite your homepage headline around their problem.

Sales & marketing

Contagious

Jonah Berger

Ideas spread when they have social currency, triggers, emotion and practical value.

Try this. Add one easy-to-remember trigger to your message.

Sales & marketing

Made to Stick

Chip Heath, Dan Heath

Ideas stick when they are simple, surprising, concrete, credible, emotional and told as stories.

Try this. Replace an abstract claim with one concrete example.

Sales & marketing

Positioning

Al Ries, Jack Trout

Win a clear place in the customer’s mind rather than shouting louder.

Try this. Finish the sentence: we are the only ones who.

Sales & marketing

This Is Marketing

Seth Godin

Marketing is about helping a specific group solve a problem they care about.

Try this. Name the smallest group you can serve very well.

Sales & marketing

Purple Cow

Seth Godin

Being remarkable is the best marketing, and safe is risky.

Try this. List one thing about your offer people would mention to others.

Sales & marketing

SPIN Selling

Neil Rackham

Large sales are won by asking questions that make the buyer feel the cost of the problem.

Try this. Prepare two implication questions before your next call.

Sales & marketing

The Challenger Sale

Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson

Top sellers teach customers something new, tailor it and are willing to push.

Try this. Bring one fresh insight to your next sales meeting.

Sales & marketing

To Sell Is Human

Daniel Pink

Everyone sells by moving others, and today the skill is attunement, buoyancy and clarity.

Try this. Practise explaining your offer in one clear sentence.

Sales & marketing

Never Split the Difference

Chris Voss

Negotiate by listening, labelling feelings and asking calibrated questions.

Try this. Use how or what questions in your next negotiation.

Sales & marketing

They Ask, You Answer

Marcus Sheridan

Answer the questions buyers ask, including about price and problems, and trust follows.

Try this. Write an honest post that answers a question buyers ask you.

Sales & marketing

Predictably Irrational

Dan Ariely

People are consistently irrational in ways that can be understood, such as being swayed by anchors.

Try this. Check how the order of your prices affects choices.

Product

Inspired

Marty Cagan

Great products come from teams that solve real problems and test ideas before building.

Try this. Test your top idea with five users before building it.

Product

Hooked

Nir Eyal

Habit-forming products follow a loop of trigger, action, reward and investment.

Try this. Map the loop in your own product.

Product

The Design of Everyday Things

Don Norman

When people struggle with a product, the design is at fault. Good design makes use obvious.

Try this. Watch someone use your product without helping.

Product

Don’t Make Me Think

Steve Krug

Web pages should be self-evident so users do not have to puzzle over them.

Try this. Remove one thing from your homepage that causes hesitation.

Product

Continuous Discovery Habits

Teresa Torres

Talk to customers every week and keep linking what you learn to what you build.

Try this. Schedule one customer call every week for a month.

Product

Shape Up

Ryan Singer

Work in fixed-time cycles with the scope shaped up front and left flexible.

Try this. Define the time you are willing to spend on your next feature.

Product

Escaping the Build Trap

Melissa Perri

Measure outcomes for customers, not how many features you ship.

Try this. Replace a feature goal with an outcome goal.

Product

Sprint

Jake Knapp and others

Answer big questions in five days through prototyping and testing with real customers.

Try this. Block a week to test one risky idea with a prototype.

Leadership

High Output Management

Andy Grove

A manager’s output is the output of the team, and good meetings and measures multiply it.

Try this. Define the one measure that shows your team is on track.

Leadership

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Ben Horowitz

There is no formula for the hardest parts of running a company, only honest choices under pressure.

Try this. Write the hardest decision on your desk and who needs to hear it.

Leadership

Radical Candor

Kim Scott

Great managers care personally and challenge directly.

Try this. Give one piece of honest feedback this week.

Leadership

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Patrick Lencioni

Teams fail when trust is missing, because everything else builds on it.

Try this. Ask your team where trust could be stronger.

Leadership

Turn the Ship Around!

L. David Marquet

Give control to the people closest to the work, and they become leaders.

Try this. Replace one ‘may I’ request with ‘I intend to’.

Leadership

Dare to Lead

Brené Brown

Courageous leaders are open, honest and willing to be vulnerable.

Try this. Name one hard conversation you have been avoiding.

Leadership

Crucial Conversations

Kerry Patterson and others

When stakes are high, how you talk matters. Keep the dialogue safe and open.

Try this. Prepare your next difficult talk with one clear purpose.

Leadership

Drive

Daniel Pink

People do their best work when they have autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Try this. Ask a teammate what would make their work more meaningful.

Leadership

The Making of a Manager

Julie Zhuo

A practical guide for new managers on feedback, hiring and growing a team.

Try this. Set up a regular one-on-one with each person.

Leadership

Measure What Matters

John Doerr

Use objectives and key results to focus the whole company on a few important goals.

Try this. Write one objective with three measurable key results.

Leadership

Principles

Ray Dalio

Write down how you make decisions, so they can be tested and improved.

Try this. Write three rules you use to make decisions.

Leadership

Who

Geoff Smart, Randy Street

Hiring the right people is the most important decision, and it can be done with a clear method.

Try this. Write a scorecard before your next hire.

Mindset & focus

Atomic Habits

James Clear

Small habits compound, and the best way to change is to make good habits easy and obvious.

Try this. Choose one tiny habit and attach it to something you already do.

Mindset & focus

Deep Work

Cal Newport

Focused, uninterrupted time is rare and valuable. Protect it.

Try this. Block two hours a day with no notifications.

Mindset & focus

Essentialism

Greg McKeown

Do fewer things, but do the right ones, by saying no to most requests.

Try this. Decline one request this week.

Mindset & focus

The War of Art

Steven Pressfield

Resistance stops creative work, and the answer is to show up and do it as a professional.

Try this. Start your hardest task for ten minutes before anything else.

Mindset & focus

Mindset

Carol Dweck

Believing abilities can grow changes how you respond to challenge.

Try this. Add the word yet to a limit you believe about yourself.

Mindset & focus

Grit

Angela Duckworth

Passion and perseverance for long-term goals predict success as much as talent.

Try this. Name one long goal and the next small step.

Mindset & focus

The Obstacle Is the Way

Ryan Holiday

Use difficulties as raw material instead of fighting them.

Try this. Write the obstacle you face and one way it could help you.

Mindset & focus

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

Private notes by a Roman emperor on staying calm, fair and focused on what you control.

Try this. Read one short passage each morning.

Mindset & focus

Man’s Search for Meaning

Viktor Frankl

People can endure almost anything when they have a reason, and we choose our response.

Try this. Write down what gives your work meaning.

Mindset & focus

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen Covey

Principles such as being proactive and putting first things first build lasting effectiveness.

Try this. Plan your week around your top three priorities.

Mindset & focus

Getting Things Done

David Allen

Get every task out of your head into a trusted system, and decide the next action for each.

Try this. Do a full brain dump and name the next step for each item.

Mindset & focus

The Power of Now

Eckhart Tolle

Worry about the past and future steals attention. Return to the present moment.

Try this. Take three slow breaths before your next meeting.

Money

The Psychology of Money

Morgan Housel

How you behave with money matters more than how much you know.

Try this. Write the rules you want to follow with your own money.

Money

The Intelligent Investor

Benjamin Graham

Invest with discipline, a margin of safety and emotional control.

Try this. Write what you would do if the market dropped by a third.

Money

Venture Deals

Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson

A plain-language guide to term sheets and how venture financing works.

Try this. Read the section on terms before you speak with any investor.

Money

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Eric Jorgenson

A collection of ideas on wealth, leverage and happiness from Naval Ravikant.

Try this. List one source of leverage you could use, such as code or media.

Money

Financial Intelligence

Karen Berman, Joe Knight

How to read financial statements without being an accountant.

Try this. Read your own profit and loss with this guide beside you.

Money

Secrets of Sand Hill Road

Scott Kupor

How venture capital works, from the investor’s point of view.

Try this. Learn how a fund makes money before you pitch one.

Money

The Richest Man in Babylon

George S. Clason

Simple stories that teach saving, investing and paying yourself first.

Try this. Set aside a fixed share of income before you spend any.

Money

The Simple Path to Wealth

JL Collins

A plain approach to investing in low-cost index funds for the long term.

Try this. Compare the fees you pay today with a low-cost option.

Decisions

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Our fast intuitive thinking is useful but biased, and slow thinking needs deliberate effort.

Try this. Slow down once this week on a decision you would normally rush.

Decisions

Superforecasting

Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner

Good forecasters think in probabilities and update often.

Try this. Put a percentage on your next important prediction.

Decisions

Poor Charlie’s Almanack

Charlie Munger

A collection of Munger’s talks on using many mental models to think clearly.

Try this. Pick one mental model and apply it to a current decision.

Decisions

Thinking in Bets

Annie Duke

Treat decisions as bets, and judge the process rather than the result.

Try this. Review a past decision by its process, not its outcome.

Decisions

The Black Swan

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Rare, unpredictable events have huge effects, so prepare for them.

Try this. List one rare event that would hurt you and how you would cope.

Decisions

Antifragile

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Some things get stronger from stress. Build systems that gain from disorder.

Try this. Find one weak point in your business and add some slack.

Decisions

Range

David Epstein

Broad experience across fields often beats early narrow specialisation.

Try this. Bring an idea from another field into your work.

Decisions

The Art of Thinking Clearly

Rolf Dobelli

A short tour of common thinking errors and how to spot them.

Try this. Read one chapter and look for that error in yourself.

Decisions

Algorithms to Live By

Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths

Computer science ideas, such as when to stop searching, can guide everyday choices.

Try this. Use the stop-searching rule on your next big choice.

Decisions

Decisive

Chip Heath, Dan Heath

A four-step process to widen your options, test assumptions, step back and prepare to be wrong.

Try this. Add at least one more option to your next decision.

About these summaries. They are written by us, not quoted from the books, so they capture the idea and not the author’s exact words. Buy or borrow the book to read it properly.

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