The Startup Owl’s Bookstore

Best Books for Entrepreneurs

Here is The Owl’s Top 50 selection of books for entrepreneurs. You may think you don’t have time for reading. But remember the authors have spent huge energy to get the essentials on to paper. A small amount of money spent on a book could save you not only time, but a huge amount of hassle.

These are all books I have read and keep by my side in the office so that I can refer to them, too. You won’t need to buy them all, but check out the titles that you think could help you get to market faster.

You can always try to find a bookstore that has a copy of the book you select, but it is so much easier to buy it on line. Some of the sections below describe business functions that you will recognize. Other sections may startle you, but don’t be daunted. Take a look.

Entrepreneurship

Without a doubt, I rate Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything as THE book not to miss for anyone who thinks they might want to start a business. Guy pulls no punches. read his book and you will not only save the price of buying it, but a whole load of wasted time. It does not matter whether you have in mind a high tech venture or even a home business, the principles he defines are the same.

The Art of the Start would help someone starting a social enterprise, or a not-for-profit, as much as a classic for-profit business. You should have the book on your bookshelf and pull it off from time to time to save yourself falling into traps. I do.

Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham is a book you should definitely read.

Bo is a very sharp commentator and an excellent writer and you will enjoy reading the book. It will be no chore and you will be enlightened and inspired by the stories of the ventures he talks about.

The businesses in the book are indeed thirteen small giants that are “growing, often in unconventional ways, but several have chosen not to grow at all, and a few have made conscious decisions to scale back their operations.”

Never Bet the Farm: How Entrepreneurs Take Risks, Make Decisions – and How You Can, Too by Anthony Iaquinto and Stephen Spinelli. The sentiment is absolutely mine: I never bet the farm, my granny, my house or anything else when I built my venture.

I heard too many stories about people putting their family at risk, believing that it was the only way to get credit. Not so (as you can see on the Bootstrapping page). If you calculate the downside risk and prepare for the worst, it will seldom happen. What I did do was to risk the firm, but not hearth and home. With five kids, I would never have slept.

Finance

I think one of the biggest developments in startup finance is crowdfunding. I recommend it to anyone who needs seed money to start their business. I am sure there will be more books appearing, but right now the only one is The Crowdfunding Revolution: Social Networking Meets Venture Financing by Kevin Lawton and Dan Marom, who self-published it. Crowdfunding has arisen in part, as a natural consequence of social networking, and in part to fill a void in seed money raising not filled by the traditional banking and finance world.

Flourishing

Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming Our Consumer Culture by John Ehrenfeld is both a manual and an inspiration to those who are committed to the concept of sustainability in business, but find it difficult to describe exactly what they mean. John challenges conventional understandings of solving environmental problems and offers a radically new set of strategies to attain sustainability. By focusing on the ‘being’ mode of human existence rather than on the unsustainable ‘having’ mode we cling to now, he asserts, a sustainable world is within our reach. As well as recommending his book, I heartily encourage you to visit his blog, where he dispenses wisdom with  wry humor and humility.

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions by Guy Kawasaki can almost be read at one sitting. This is Guy’s latest book and his second in my list–because he is able to write so well and crisply about what it takes in the Web age to enchant people both in person and through the Internet. He makes you feel that you can extend yourself into every nook of your potential relationship set. He is enchanting himself and can help you to emulate his success.

The book exemplifies the title and his own authenticity. Here are no clever gimmicks and while it make take you a while to get to the level of sophistication that he achieves in his Venture Capital business (Garage Technology Ventures) or alltop.com (to help you answer the question, “What’s happening?” in “all the topics” that interest you), he gives you the tools to do so.

Marketing

Marketing That Matters: 10 Practices to Profit Your Business and Change the World by Chip Conley and Eric Friedenwald-Fishman. Chip is the founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality that runs boutique hotels and is inspiring in the way that he chooses to run his business as if people really mattered. Eric is the creative director and President of the Metropolitan Group. His company is (like WorkSavvy) a B Corporation–that crafts strategic and creative services that empower social purpose organizations to build a just and sustainable world. The book will inspire a great marketing plan for any startup.

Planning

Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, who claim it is a book for visionaries, game changers, and challengers who want to design tomorrow’s enterprises. My own view is that you should not look at it until you are pretty sure about what you want your new business to do. Why? Because you would be tempted to use the visual tools it includes–they are such fun to play with–that you might start off down the wrong track. But once your idea is more than a scribble or dream, buy this book and use it like a fiend with your team or others who can lend a hand.

How to Write a Business Plan is a very good and down to earth guide from Nolo. If you want to convince the bank or any other loan source, this would be a very handy tool, with a CD-ROM that will enable you to do straightforward income statements and balance sheets, right of the bat, this is the one for you.

The CD has a template for a manufacturing and a small service business, that you can edit and print. There are also spreadsheets set up for: sales revenue, profit forecast, cash flow and personal financial statements.

If you want more fundamental help, then the only book to buy is Business Plans that Work: a Guide for Small Business by Jeffry Timmons, Andrew Zacharakis and Stephen Spinelli. The (late) Jeffry Timmons said, “We are in the midst of a silent revolution–a triumph of the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of humankind throughout the world.” Using practical examples, the authors take you through a really thought-provoking process that will result in a very effective plan.

What I Didn’t Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real World by Jay Barney and Trish Gorman Clifford is a book I use on the MBA strategy course I teach. It is written in the form of a business novel and it works really well.

Although the fictional setting is a major corporate, the learning points apply really well to a startup venture situation as well.