Essential Reading Guide for Startups

Have an idea for a product? Got your start-up off the ground and don’t know what to do next?

The following are the MUST-READ books every startup founder should read, underline, read again, and implement.

Competing Against Luck

by Clayton M. Christensen, et al.

If you have a business idea and you want to have customers... drop everything you are doing and read this book now!

Most reviews you will see of this book focus on innovation. And yes, absolutely, this book is about that. However, you don’t need to be a business with a focus on innovation to benefit greatly from this book.

At its heart, innovation is:

having a deep understanding of a customer’s need and
finding a way to meet that need in a unique way.

And what business doesn’t need to deeply understand their customers' needs?

In this book, Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen introduces you to the theory of Jobs to be Done which will revolutionise the way you think about your customers and your business. The book is full of practical examples and methodologies for truly understanding your customers’ needs.

The Lean Startup

by Eric Reis

This is a foundational book on how startup businesses work. Eric introduces the idea of the build - measure - learn feedback loop.

This book is key to understanding the principles on which a startup should operate.

Running Lean

by Asha Maurya

This is a practical guide to applying the Lean Startup methodology. It breaks down the concepts introduced in The Lean Startup and provides practical advice in the form of a process that takes you from idea to a plan that works.

Lean Branding

by Laura Bushe

I often see branding treated by companies in one of two ways. Either:

the company has spent too much time focusing on branding without any real product or content to put behind it, or
the company has left branding as an afterthought, a coat of paint once the house has been built.

Oddly enough... neither works!

Branding is something to consider from the beginning and develop as your product develops.

A common misconception about branding is that you need a branding expert to do it. Laura Bushe shows that it isn’t the job of some external agency to do your branding for you. It’s an essential part of the business strategy to be undertaken by the founder.

Lean Branding provides you with all the tools to develop your branding yourself.

The Startup Evolution Curve

by Donatas Jonikas

Though it is a bit of a dry read, this book is the startup founder manual.

It covers everything from ideas to raising money and building technology. Read alongside Running Lean, it provides a blueprint for how to take your idea from concept to market.

Business Model Generation

by Alex Osterwalder et al.

This book introduces the Business Model Canvas, an essential tool for startups to develop and test a business plan that will ensure repeatable, sustainable growth.

Value Proposition Design

by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur

This book introduces the Value Proposition Canvas, a tool to explore user pains, gains and Jobs To Be Done in order to design a product that meets real user needs.

This is Service Design Doing

edited by Marc Stinkdorn et al.

This book is an essential and practical introduction to service design.

If you’re a founder of a company that provides a product or service (everyone!) you need to understand service design. Service design concepts ensure that you design a product that meets user needs by understanding and designing around the user journey.

This book is filled with practical tools you can start using with your team today.

Have you read any of these books yet? Which one(s)? What did you find was the most useful takeaway? Let me know in the comments below.