Ask HN: Best books to build up entrepreneurial mindset?
When you grow up in a working class family building a business does not come naturally.
You don’t see it everyday, you don’t feel it from the inside. You don’t form subconscious knowledge of how it is done.
Then great books and educational resources are to the rescue!
Could you please name your personal top 3 of such a resources that not just pump you with emotions (most films are out of the table) and not just throw microeconomic formulas and theories at you,
But the ones showing you the truthful picture of inside-outs of a small to large businesses, with specific details and meaningful cases to learn from?
22 comments
[ 25.4 ms ] story [ 789 ms ] threadThis is one of those things where you actually have to Do It instead of Read Theory.
Maybe there's a tipping point where the advice starts working, but anyway not great advice for a complete starter.
Top three, at least for me but depends on your business type, are...
Lean Startup, Crossing the Chasm, The Challenger Sale
A Business and it's Beliefs is hands down my favorite philosophy book
The basics of how to start a startup: https://playbook.samaltman.com/
Growth. Or figuring out when your startup is doing well or poorly, runway, why it takes so long: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html
I think when people criticize a startup's profitability, they don't really understand that the goal of a startup is to grow assets, not earn money, and then then sell those assets to someone who can make more money from it.
A very different book to the usual, Startup Owner's Manual: https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-Step/dp/09...
It's a good book on validating what works and how ambitious to be. Much of it is in the form of checklists, which help you decide the next step. It's not a boring book, though. I haven't read through the whole thing as we got off the ground before finishing the book. It's the book that got my ex-co-founder away from more traditional businesses and into startups.
There’s two sides of entrepreneurship, creating and selling. I tend to focus on creating as I’ve always felt a bit of distaste towards sales and marketing. This book does a great job of reframing sales, and explaining natural human behaviour in our economic system.
I learned most by doing it. There are so many things you need to do and know as a business owner (product development, marketing, sales, HR, finance). You need to learn to quickly grasp the basics and then implement it.
I would certainly recommend reading books about entrepreneurship as they help to sharpen your mind and offer new perspectives. But certainly don’t use it as an excuse to postpone ‘just starting’. Disguised as: ‘I need to learn just a bit more and then I am ready’.
Good luck with it!
Not relevant to me (OP), as I have already started multiple endeavors (and failed most of them).
So any decent books recommendations are still welcome. Thanks.
- keep an eye on your cash, it is possible to go bankrupt with a viable business just by running out of cash on hand
- limit recurring costs
- limit recurring costs
- don't hire until you really have to
- sell first then perfect your product
- limit recurring costs.
https://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/10...
I found it really helpful.
Not a book but just a personal opinion, that building is the easier part, marketing is way more difficult and it is way more important. If you want to be an entrepreneur, it's not going to be very fun or stimulating
• Fundraising • Hiring • Growth
and a lot of other categories.
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