Some Popular and Insightful Reading for Entrepreneurs

Title: Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things. Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself. Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique. Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.

Author(s): Peter Thiel;Blake Masters

ISBN 13: 9780804139298
Pages: 210

This book is in (10) other book lists, learn more.

Title: Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won't Teach You at Business School

It’s business school, the Branson way. Whether you’re interested in starting your own business, improving your leadership skills, or simply looking for inspiration from one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time, Richard Branson has the answers. Like a Virgin brings together some of his best advice, distilling the experiences and insights that have made him one of the world’s most recognized and respected business leaders. In his trademark thoughtful and encouraging voice, Branson shares his knowledge like a close friend. He’ll teach you how to be more innovative, how to lead by listening, how to enjoy your work, and much more. In hindsight, Branson is thankful he never went to business school. Had he conformed to the conventional dos and don’ts of starting a business, would there have been a Virgin Records? A Virgin Atlantic? So many of Branson’s achievements are due to his unyielding deter­mination to break the rules and rewrite them himself. Here’s how he does it.

Author(s): Richard Branson

ISBN 13: 9781591845683
Pages: 352

This book is in (3) other book lists, learn more.

Title: The Entrepreneur Mind: 100 Essential Beliefs, Characteristics, and Habits of Elite Entrepreneurs

To achieve unimaginable business success and financial wealth—to reach the upper echelons of entrepreneurs, where you’ll find Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sara Blakely of Spanx, Mark Pincus of Zynga, Kevin Plank of Under Armour, and many others—you have to change the way you think. In other words, you must develop the Entrepreneur Mind, a way of thinking that comes from learning the vital lessons of the best entrepreneurs. In a praiseworthy effort to distill some of the most important lessons of entrepreneurship, Kevin D. Johnson, president of multimillion-dollar company Johnson Media Inc. and a serial entrepreneur for several years, shares the essential beliefs, characteristics, and habits of elite entrepreneurs. Through the conviction of his own personal experiences, which include a life-changing visit to Harvard Business School, and the compelling stories of modern-day business tycoons, Johnson transforms an oftentimes complex topic into a lucid and accessible one. In this riveting book written for new and veteran entrepreneurs, Johnson identifies one hundred key lessons that every entrepreneur must learn in seven areas: Strategy, Education, People, Finance, Marketing and Sales, Leadership, and Motivation. Lessons include how to think big, who makes the best business partners, what captivates investors, when to abandon a business idea, where to avoid opening a business bank account, and why too much formal education can hinder your entrepreneurial growth. Smart and insightful, The Entrepreneur Mind: 100 Essential Beliefs, Characteristics, and Habits of Elite Entrepreneurs is the ultimate primer on how to think like an entrepreneur.

Author(s): Kevin D. Johnson

ISBN 13: 9780988479708
Pages: 268

Title: Growth Hacker Marketing

Whether you work for a tiny start-up or a Fortune 500 giant, if you’re responsible for building awareness and buzz for a product or service, this is your road map. A new generation of megabrands like Facebook, Dropbox, Airbnb, and Twitter haven’t spent a dime on traditional marketing. No press releases, no TV commercials, no billboards. Instead, they rely on a new strategy—growth hacking—to reach many more people despite modest marketing budgets. Growth hackers have thrown out the old playbook and replaced it with tools that are testable, trackable, and scalable. They believe that products and businesses should be modified repeatedly until they’re primed to generate explosive reactions.

Author(s): Ryan Holiday

ISBN 13: 9781591847380
Pages: 111

This book is in (6) other book lists, learn more.

Title: How to Win at the Sport of Business

Mark Cuban shares his wealth of experience and business savvy in his first published book, How to Win at the Sport of Business.One of the world's wealthiest entrepreneurs, Mark Cuban has collected and updated the greatest material from his ...

Author(s): Mark Cuban

ISBN 13: 9781626810914
Pages: 82

This book is in (3) other book lists, learn more.

Title: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Amazon.com's visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now. Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, and his book is the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. The Everything Store is the book that the business world can't stop talking about, the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.

Author(s): Brad Stone

ISBN 13: 9780316219280
Pages: 416

This book is in (6) other book lists, learn more.

Title: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

New York Times Bestseller - Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Audible and Amazon In Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, veteran technology journalist Ashlee Vance provides the first inside look into the extraordinary life and times of Silicon Valley's most audacious entrepreneur. Written with exclusive access to Musk, his family and friends, the book traces the entrepreneur's journey from a rough upbringing in South Africa to the pinnacle of the global business world. Vance spent more than 30 hours in conversation with Musk and interviewed close to 300 people to tell the tumultuous stories of Musk's world-changing companies: PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity, and to characterize a man who has renewed American industry and sparked new levels of innovation while making plenty of enemies along the way. Vance uses Musk's story to explore one of the pressing questions of our time: can the nation of inventors and creators which led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk--one of the most unusual and striking figures in American business history--is a contemporary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy.

Author(s): Ashlee Vance

ISBN 13: 9780062301239
Pages: 400

This book is in (15) other book lists, learn more.

Title: Rich Dad Poor Dad

Argues that a good education and a secure job are not guarantees for financial success, and describes six guidelines for making money work for oneself. Rich Dad Poor Dad, the #1 Personal Finance book of all time, tells the story of Robert Kiyosaki and his two dads his real father and the father of his best friend, his rich dad and the ways in which both men shaped his thoughts about money and investing. The book explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to be rich and explains the difference between working for money and having your money work for you.

Author(s): Robert T. Kiyosaki

ISBN 13: 9781612680019
Pages: 183

This book is in (15) other book lists, learn more.

Title: The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

Master the fundamentals, hone your business instincts, and save a fortune in tuition.

The consensus is clear: MBA programs are a waste of time and money. Even the elite schools offer outdated assembly-line educations about profit-and-loss statements and PowerPoint presentations. After two years poring over sanitized case studies, students are shuffled off into middle management to find out how business really works.

Josh Kaufman has made a business out of distilling the core principles of business and delivering them quickly and concisely to people at all stages of their careers. His blog has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the best business books and most powerful business concepts of all time. In The Personal MBA, he shares the essentials of sales, marketing, negotiation, strategy, and much more.

True leaders aren't made by business schools-they make themselves, seeking out the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to succeed. Read this book and in one week you will learn the principles it takes most people a lifetime to master.

Author(s): Josh Kaufman

ISBN 13: 9781591845577
Pages: 464

Title: Start Your Own Business, Sixth Edition: The Only Startup Book You'll Ever Need

Tapping into more than 33 years of small business expertise, the staff at Entrepreneur Media takes today’s entrepreneurs beyond opening their doors and through the first three years of ownership. This revised edition features amended chapters on choosing a business, adding partners, getting funded, and managing the business structure and employees, and also includes help understanding the latest tax and healthcare reform information and legalities.

Author(s): The Staff of Entrepreneur Media

ISBN 13: 9781599185569
Pages: 766

Title: The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage

Daymond John has been practicing the power of broke ever since he started selling his home-sewn t-shirts on the streets of Queens. With no funding and a $40 budget, Daymond had to come up with out-of-the box ways to promote his products. Luckily, desperation breeds innovation, and so he hatched an idea for a creative campaign that eventually launched the FUBU brand into a $6 billion dollar global phenomenon. But it might not have happened if he hadn’t started out broke - with nothing but a heart full of hope and a ferocious drive to succeed by any means possible.

Author(s): Daymond John

ISBN 13: 9781101903599
Pages: 288

This book is in (4) other book lists, learn more.

Title: Mindset: How Positive Thinking Will Set You Free & Help You Achieve Massive Success In Life

Do you ever wonder why some people get to achieve their dreams whereas some people never even get close to that? Well this book will help you learn how to embrace positive thinking in order to achieve success in your life. So, what makes the difference between someone who seems to get things done, achieve success, and seem to have it all and someone who does not seem to get things done? Well, the one thing that has a huge impact on whether you pursue your dreams or not is your mind. While your mind is a very powerful organ, if you don’t harness its full potential, then you will not live the kind of life you desire. Think about it; when your mind believes that you are already defeated, no amount of practice or training can make you believe otherwise. In fact, even when people keep telling you that you can do it, when your mind thinks you can’t, you won’t make any significant progress in whatever it is you wanted to do.

Author(s): Benjamin Smith

ISBN 13: 9781523707843
Pages: 62

This book is in (2) other book lists, learn more.

Title: The Lean Startup

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on validated learning, rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it´s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

Author(s): Eric Ries

ISBN 13: 9780307887894
Pages: 320

This book is in (8) other book lists, learn more.

Title: Emotional Habits: The 7 Things Resilient People Do Differently (And How They Can Help You Succeed in Business and Life)

MASTER THE ONE SKILL ALL PEAK PERFORMERS HAVE IN COMMON What is the one skill that the world’s most successful leaders, athletes and business people have in common? And more importantly, how can you harness this skill to achieve greater success, fulfillment and well-being in your business and personal life? New research reveals that resilience – more than IQ – is a key factor in determining your success and well-being, at work as well as in your relationships.

Author(s): Akash Karia

ISBN 13: 9781533260574
Pages: 130

Title: Go Pro

Over twenty years ago at a company convention, Eric Worre had an aha moment that changed his life forever. At that event he made the decision to Go Pro and become a Network Marketing expert. Since that time, he has focused on developing the skills to do just that. In doing so, Eric has touched and been touched by hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Now he shares his wisdom in a guide that will ignite your passion for this profession and help you make the decision to Go Pro and create the life of your dreams. In this definitive guidebook, you will learn to: -Find prospects -Invite them to your product or opportunity -Present your product -Follow up with your prospects -Help them become customers or distributors -Help them get started right -Grow your team by promoting events -And much, much more. Eric's wish is for you to make the decision to become a Network Marketing Professional. For you to truly Go Pro. Because it is a stone-cold fact that Network Marketing is a better way. Now let's go tell the world.

Author(s): Eric Worre

ISBN 13: 9780988667907
Pages: 149

This book is in (5) other book lists, learn more.

Title: The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future

In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau shows you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose and earn a good living.
 
Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth he´s already visited more than 175 nations and yet he´s never held a real job or earned a regular paycheck.  Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back. 
 
There are many others like Chris those who´ve found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful.  Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn´t depend on shelving what you currently do.  You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful.
 
In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he´s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies.  In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.
 
Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who´ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment.  It´s all about finding the intersection between your expertise even if you don´t consider it such -- and what other people will pay for.  You don´t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees.  All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.
 
Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick.  Among Chris´s key principles: if you´re good at one thing, you´re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.
 
In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold.  Today, we know that it´s up to us to change our lives.  And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs.  This remarkable book will start you on your way.

Author(s): Chris Guillebeau

ISBN 13: 9780307951526
Pages: 304

This book is in (2) other book lists, learn more.

Title: How to Win Friends and Influence People

You can go after the job you want—and get it! You can take the job you have—and improve it! You can take any situation—and make it work for you! Dale Carnegie’s rock-solid, time-tested advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. One of the most groundbreaking and timeless bestsellers of all time, How to Win Friends & Influence People will teach you: -Six ways to make people like you -Twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking -Nine ways to change people without arousing resentment And much more! Achieve your maximum potential—a must-read for the twenty-first century with more than 15 million copies sold!

Author(s): Dale Carnegie

ISBN 13: 9780671027032

This book is in (10) other book lists, learn more.

Title: Small Time Operator: How to Start Your Own Business, Keep Your Books, Pay Your Taxes, and Stay Out of Trouble

Written for small businesses, self-employed individuals, employers, professionals, independent contractors, home businesses, and Internet businesses, Small Time Operator is the most popular business start-up guide ever. In clear, easy to understand language, the author covers: getting permits and licenses; how to finance a business; finding the right business location; creating and using a business plan; choosing and protecting a business name; deciding whether to incorporate; establishing a complete bookkeeping system; hiring employees; federal, state and local taxes; buying a business or franchise; dealing with - and avoiding - the IRS; doing business on the Internet; insurance, contracts, pricing, trademarks, patents, and much more.

Author(s): Bernard B. Kamoroff

ISBN 13: 9781589797994
Pages: 256

Title: Think and Grow Rich - 1937 Original Masterpiece

Think and Grow Rich is Napoleon Hill's newest book, based upon his famous LAW OF SUCCESS philosophy. His work and writings have been praised by great leaders in finance, education, politics, and government.

Author(s): Napoleon Hill

ISBN 13: 9781939438270
Pages: 180

This book is in (10) other book lists, learn more.

Title: Starting a Business All-In-One For Dummies

All the practical advice you need for starting a business Starting a business? Don't sweat it! Reflecting today's unique opportunities and challenges, Starting a Business All-In-One For Dummies is packed with everything you need to manage your personal and business risks and successfully navigate your first year in business. Written in plain English and packed with simple, step-by-step instructions, it shows you how to start up your dream business from scratch, write a winning business plan, secure financing, manage your risks successfully, navigate your first year of operation, and much more! The information inside is amassed from 11 bestselling For Dummies books, covering everything from franchising and home-based businesses to bookkeeping, accounting, branding, and marketing. If you're a go-getter looking for a way to launch a great idea and be your own boss, Starting a Business All-In-One For Dummies prepares you to beat the odds and become successful in your sector.

Author(s): Consumer Dummies

ISBN 13: 9781119049104
Pages: 600