Book picks similar to
The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from Their Founding Entrepreneurs by David S. Kidder
business
entrepreneurship
startup
startups
Innovation Driven Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to Help Entrepreneurs Launch Successful New Ventures
William Aulet - 2013
Many believe that it cannot be taught, and those who are successful in starting a business are born with something others do not have. Innovation-based entrepreneurship can be broken down into discreet behaviors and processes that can be taught to the intelligent, hardworking, people using this book.Eric Ries and Steve Blank were wrong; the road to a successful start-up is not just four steps. "Innovation Driven"" Entrepreneurship "breaks it down into 24 steps which include: Market segmentationQuantify the value propositionDefine your coreMap the process to acquire a paying costumerTest key assumptionsDevelop a product plan, and more.
The CEO Next Door: The 4 Behaviours that Transform Ordinary People into World Class Leaders
Elena L. Botelho - 2018
You must graduate from an elite college or business school. In fact, only 7 percent of the CEOs of today's companies went to a top school--and 8 percent didn't graduate from college at all. Never put a foot wrong. In fact, people who have become CEOs have on average had five to seven career setbacks on their way to the top.Drawing on the biggest dataset of CEOs in the world -- in-depth analysis of 2,600 leaders, drawn from a database of 17,000 CEOs, as well as 13,000 hours of interviews -- The CEO Next Door is crammed full of myth-busting and counter-intuitive insights in what it really takes to get ahead. Discover the way actual CEOs of top companies think and behave, and the kind of traits to develop if you want to make your ambitions a reality and take your career right to the top.
Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
Melissa Perri - 2018
Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs.
In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small.
In five parts, this book explores:
Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent
How to set up a product organization that scales
How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities
How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework
How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs
6 Months to 6 Figures
Peter Voogd - 2014
No BS, No fluff, No Academic Theories, and No Sugar Coating. Just real world, tactical, hard core strategies from being in the trenches. Peter Voogd, who’s labeled the leading authority for Gen Y leadership reveals the exact strategies he’s used to go from dead broke to over 6 figures within 6 months in multiple industries. Peter has trained over 4,000 Entrepreneurs and built an 8 million dollar sales organization by age 27. If you’re one of the select few who are serious about success, this book will change the game for you. Most Entrepreneurs struggle with inconsistent income, low productivity, and don’t have enough time in a day to get everything they want done? Peter shows you the fastest and most effective ways to maximize your income, get bigger things done in less time, and helps you create your ideal lifestyle. We assure you this is only book you’ll ever need to thrive as an Entrepreneur. It will help you create a quantum change in the results you enjoy in your personal and professional life. As I’m sure you are aware and have experienced, most people just talk about success, wish they had success, but never take the necessary action consistently to achieve it. They spend year after year just trying to get by vs. designing a compelling future. We want to bring you off the sidelines and into the game. We want you to enjoy higher levels of fulfillment, more passion and energy, and results very few attain. It’s time to stop surviving, and start thriving. For more information, please visit: 6FiguresBook.com
The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea at the Right Time
Allen Gannett - 2018
We have been spoon-fed the notion that creativity is the province of genius -- of those favored, brilliant few whose moments of insight arrive in unpredictable flashes of divine inspiration. And if we are not a genius, we might as well pack it in and give up. Either we have that gift, or we don’t. But Allen shows that simply isn’t true. Recent research has shown that there is a predictable science behind achieving commercial success in any creative endeavor, from writing a popular novel to starting up a successful company to creating an effective marketing campaign. As the world’s most creative people have discovered, we are enticed by the novel and the familiar. By understanding the mechanics of what Gannett calls “the creative curve” – the point of optimal tension between the novel and the familiar – everyone can better engineer mainstream success. In a thoroughly entertaining book that describes the stories and insights of everyone from the Broadway team behind Dear Evan Hansen, to the founder of Reddit, from the Chief Content Officer of Netflix to Michelin star chefs, Gannett reveals the four laws of creative success and identifies the common patterns behind their achievement.
Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
Paul Graham - 2004
Who are these people, what motivates them, and why should you care?Consider these facts: Everything around us is turning into computers. Your typewriter is gone, replaced by a computer. Your phone has turned into a computer. So has your camera. Soon your TV will. Your car was not only designed on computers, but has more processing power in it than a room-sized mainframe did in 1970. Letters, encyclopedias, newspapers, and even your local store are being replaced by the Internet.Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, by Paul Graham, explains this world and the motivations of the people who occupy it. In clear, thoughtful prose that draws on illuminating historical examples, Graham takes readers on an unflinching exploration into what he calls “an intellectual Wild West.”The ideas discussed in this book will have a powerful and lasting impact on how we think, how we work, how we develop technology, and how we live. Topics include the importance of beauty in software design, how to make wealth, heresy and free speech, the programming language renaissance, the open-source movement, digital design, internet startups, and more.
How to Get Rich
Felix Dennis - 2007
And if someone like me can become rich, then so can you - no matter what your present circumstances. Here is how I did it and what I learned along the way.' So writes Felix Dennis, who believes that almost anyone of reasonable intelligence can become rich, given sufficient motivation and application. How To Get Rich is a distillation of his business wisdom. Primarily concerned with the step-by-step creation of wealth, it ruthlessly dissects the business failures and financial triumphs of 'a South London lad who became rich virtually by accident'. Part manual, part memoir, part primer, this book is a template for those who are willing to stare down failure and transform their lives.Canny, infuriating, cynical and generous by turns, How To Get Rich is an invaluable guide to 'the surprisingly simple art of collecting money which already has your name on it'.
BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0): Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company
Jim Collins - 2020
And while Collins would go on to write a series of famous bestsellers that have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, this lesser-known early work remains the favourite of many of his loyal readers.Now, with Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, Collins re-shares the timeless insights in Beyond Entrepreneurship alongside new perspectives gleaned after decades of additional research into what makes great companies tick. In Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, you'll learn how to turn your company into the 2.0 version of itself. You'll be challenged to grow your own leadership as your company grows, from 1x to 2x to 5x to 10x. You'll learn Collins's newest reflections on people decisions, insights that extend beyond his seminal "first who" principle about getting the right people on the bus. You'll learn why luck favours the persistent, and what it means to look for "who luck." You'll learn about the origins of the "BHAG" (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), and why even a small business needs a galvanising BHAG to have a complete and inspiring vision.You'll also unlock what Collins calls "The Map." The Map is a road map that pulls together the key concepts developed from thirty years of research and writing into one integrated framework for building a company that delivers superior results, makes a distinctive impact, and achieves lasting endurance.Finally, you'll learn the lessons that Jim Collins himself learned from the most influential mentor in his life, Bill Lazier.Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 is the ambitious upgrade to a classic. In Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, you'll discover that the goal to turn your business into an enduring great company is as relevant - and as within your reach - as ever.
Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead
Laszlo Bock - 2015
"We spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It's not right that the experience of work should be so demotivating and dehumanizing." So says Laszlo Bock, head of People Operations at the company that transformed how the world interacts with knowledge. This insight is the heart of WORK RULES!, a compelling and surprisingly playful manifesto that offers lessons including:Take away managers' power over employeesLearn from your best employees-and your worstHire only people who are smarter than you are, no matter how long it takes to find themPay unfairly (it's more fair!)Don't trust your gut: Use data to predict and shape the futureDefault to open-be transparent and welcome feedbackIf you're comfortable with the amount of freedom you've given your employees, you haven't gone far enough. Drawing on the latest research in behavioral economics and a profound grasp of human psychology, WORK RULES! also provides teaching examples from a range of industries-including lauded companies that happen to be hideous places to work and little-known companies that achieve spectacular results by valuing and listening to their employees. Bock takes us inside one of history's most explosively successful businesses to reveal why Google is consistently rated one of the best places to work in the world, distilling 15 years of intensive worker R&D into principles that are easy to put into action, whether you're a team of one or a team of thousands. WORK RULES! shows how to strike a balance between creativity and structure, leading to success you can measure in quality of life as well as market share. Read it to build a better company from within rather than from above; read it to reawaken your joy in what you do.
Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy
Joan Magretta - 2011
The value chain. Five forces. Industry structure. Differentiation. Relative cost. If you want to understand how companies achieve and sustain competitive success, Michael Porter’s frameworks are the foundation. But while everyone in business may know Porter’s name, many managers misunderstand and misuse his concepts.Understanding Michael Porter sets the record straight, providing the first concise, accessible summary of Porter’s revolutionary thinking. Written with Porter’s full cooperation by Joan Magretta, his former editor at Harvard Business Review, this new book delivers fresh, clear examples to illustrate and update Porter’s ideas.Magretta uses her wide business experience to translate Porter’s powerful insights into practice and to correct the most common misconceptions about them—for instance, that competition is about being unique, not being the best; that it is a contest over profits, not a battle between rivals; that strategy is about choosing to make some customers unhappy, not being all things to all customers.An added feature is an original Q&A with Porter himself, which includes answers to managers’ FAQs.Eminently readable, this book will enable every manager in your organization to grasp Porter’s ideas—and swiftly deploy them to drive your company’s success.
Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters
Ryan Singer - 2019
"This book is a guide to how we do product development at Basecamp. It’s also a toolbox full of techniques that you can apply in your own way to your own process.Whether you’re a founder, CTO, product manager, designer, or developer, you’re probably here because of some common challenges that all software companies have to face."
What It Takes: How I Built a $100 Million Business Against the Odds
Raegan Moya-Jones - 2019
I succeeded, despite all the odds and curveballs thrown my way, and you can too. I'm here to tell you, that you do have what it takes to start a business, change careers and be successful, and I'm going to show you how.'In What It Takes, Raegan Moya-Jones shares inspiration, advice and a healthy dose of real talk about what it's like to be an entrepreneur. As the founder and former CEO of aden + anais, a boutique baby swaddle company, Raegan learnt that success isn't about an Ivy League education and an influential network, success is about trusting your instincts, following your gut and knowing which rules to follow and which to break.Raegan's extraordinary story proves that it's never too late to follow your dreams. Empowering and energising, What It Takes will give you the kick up the arse you need to reach your full potential. So get ready to check your doubts at the door and jump in.'An inspiring story for anyone who wants to change their career, play by their own rules, and build a successful business in the process' Rebecca Minkoff, Founder & Creative Director
The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time
Jim McKelvey - 2020
Louis glassblowing artist and recovering computer scientist named Jim McKelvey lost a sale because he couldn't accept American Express cards. Frustrated by the high costs and difficulty of accepting credit card payments, McKelvey joined his friend Jack Dorsey (the cofounder of Twitter) to launch Square, a startup that would enable small merchants to accept credit card payments on their mobile phones. With no expertise or experience in the world of payments, they approached the problem of credit cards with a new perspective, questioning the industry's assumptions, experimenting and innovating their way through early challenges, and achieving widespread adoption from merchants small and large.But just as Square was taking off, Amazon launched a similar product, marketed it aggressively, and undercut Square on price. For most ordinary startups, this would have spelled the end. Instead, less than a year later, Amazon was in retreat and soon discontinued its service. How did Square beat the most dangerous company on the planet? Was it just luck? These questions motivated McKelvey to study what Square had done differently from all the other companies Amazon had killed. He eventually found the key: a strategy he calls the Innovation Stack.McKelvey's fascinating and humorous stories of Square's early days are blended with historical examples of other world-changing companies built on the Innovation Stack to reveal a pattern of ground-breaking, competition-proof entrepreneurship that is rare but repeatable.The Innovation Stack is a thrilling business narrative that's much bigger than the story of Square. It is an irreverent first-person look inside the world of entrepreneurship, and a call to action for all of us to find the entrepreneur within ourselves and identify and fix unsolved problems--one crazy idea at a time.
The One Minute Manager
Kenneth H. Blanchard - 1981
These very real results were achieved through learning the management techniques that spell profitability for the organization and its employees.The One Minute Manager is a concise, easily read story that reveals three very practical secrets: One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Reprimands. The audio also presents several studies in medicine and the behavioral sciences that clearly explain why these apparently simple methods work so well with so many people. By the audio's end you will know how to apply them to your own situation and enjoy the benefits.
Modern Monopolies: What It Takes to Dominate the 21st Century Economy
Alex Moazed - 2016
Johnson tell the definitive story of what has changed, what it means for businesses today, and how managers, entrepreneurs, and business owners can adapt and thrive in this new era.What do Google, Snapchat, Tinder, Amazon, and Uber have in common, besides soaring market share? They're platforms - a new business model that has quietly become the only game in town, creating vast fortunes for its founders while dominating everyone's daily life. A platform, by definition, creates value by facilitating an exchange between two or more interdependent groups. So, rather that making things, they simply connect people.The Internet today is awash in platforms - Facebook is responsible for nearly 25 percent of total Web visits, and the Google platform crash in 2013 took about 40 percent of Internet traffic with it. Representing the ten most trafficked sites in the U.S., platforms are also prominent over the globe; in China, they hold the top eight spots in web traffic rankings.The advent of mobile computing and its ubiquitous connectivity have forever altered how we interact with each other, melding the digital and physical worlds and blurring distinctions between "offline" and "online." These platform giants are expanding their influence from the digital world to the whole economy. Yet, few people truly grasp the radical structural shifts of the last ten years.