Top 10 Books for Entrepreneurs
to Read this Summer
from Overview Partners.com 05/14 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz 7/14
Your Summer Seminar. This summer, get away, but stay up-to-date — and be ready to move your business forward when you get back. Discover the latest insights & lessons that will take you one step closer toward turning the vision for your company into reality. When most people think of summer, imagery of beaches, sunshine, & barbecues typically come to mind. And while many of us will, at some point, enjoy those things this summer, the truth is that entrepreneurs — even if they do take a vacation — can never really afford to totally escape from their business.
A Startup is often a 24/7 Life, and the challenge of constantly discovering new ideas, learning new techniques, & improving existing processes is ongoing. Then, there’s the common feeling of anxiety that entrepreneurs suffer when they do take a breather: If I take a break, will that give my competition an opportunity to catch up? Fortunately, there’s another common summer activity that entrepreneurs can partake in that will allow them to step away from their business for a moment and engage in the kind of learning that pushes their growing enterprise to the next level: Read a great book !!!
Recommendations? The 10 books listed below provide critical insight, advice, & ideas on topics ranging from business model generation & scalability, to lean analytics. Whether you choose to digest them on a beach chair or on your couch after another 16-hour workday is, of course, totally up to you.
Top 10 Books for Entrepreneurs to Read this Summer
1. Startup Owner’s Manual. Building & scaling a startup technology company isn’t easy (one needs only look at startup failure rates to see that). But if anyone would know which steps to take to build a great business, it’s Blank & Dorf. Combined, the two authors have more than 70 years of experience in growing startup businesses, which makes the lessons they share from booms — and busts — incredibly worthwhile. In the end, the book is an absolute must-read for entrepreneurs hoping to build a bigger (& better) business.
2. Scalability Rules. Very few entrepreneurs start a business with the hope of halting its growth and keeping it small. Rather, scaling their companies into big corporations (with equally big profits) is typically the end goal. In this book, AKF Partners founders Abbott & Fisher cover everything entrepreneurs must do, to build infrastructures that allow growing businesses to systematically overcome common obstacles to scalability.
3. The Entrepreneurial Mindset. Chances are that you’ve had experts, consultants, advisors, & investors hammer into your brain how critical it is to develop & leverage a sustainable competitive advantage. In this book, McGrath, a Columbia Business School professor, argues that it’s time to forget about that increasingly irrelevant idea and instead focus on a new playbook based on the notion of transient competitive advantage. Ultimately, McGrath writes, that will help you compete and win today.
4. Founder’s Dilemma. As many entrepreneurs know all too well, there are numerous pitfalls that can undermine a startup as it begins to scale. Should the business hire a dedicated sales team? Bring on cofounders? Seek outside investment to accelerate growth? Wasserman, a Harvard Business School professor, explores these issues in this Amazon bestseller, warning of the decisions that often lay the foundation for eventual ruin.
[ 5. Myth of the Visionary, 6. Using Lean Analytics, 7. Venture Deals, 8. Nail it, then Scale it, 9. Running Lean, 10. Business Model Generation, in Premium Content ]