15 all-time best books for entrepreneurs and business owners. Reading is the most important part of successful entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.
1. Good to Great by Jim Collins
“Greatness is not a function of circumstances. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.“
‘Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make The Leap… And Others Don’t’ is a book that focuses on the concepts which when followed can make a mere good company, a great one! The theories given help the companies to be successful in their business. The author and his expert team set out to find solutions for the handicaps that the small and mediocre companies have to face. The problems can range from the initial teething problems to the mid-life-business feeling of just being good and not great! Their main focus is to help out those businesses which do not have any Godfather in the corporate industry.
2. Build to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras
“Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.”
Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day — as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: “What makes the truly exceptional companies different from the comparison companies and what were the common practices these enduringly great companies followed throughout their history?”
Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the 21st century and beyond.
3. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
“The single most powerful asset we all have is our mind. If it is trained well, it can create enormous wealth in what seems to be an instant.”
It has since become the #1 Personal Finance book of all time… translated into dozens of languages and sold around the world.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is Robert’s story of growing up with 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.
4. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
“A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.”
Most new businesses fail. But most of those failures are preventable.
The Lean Startup is a new approach to business that’s being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
The Lean Startup is about learning what your customers really want. It’s about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it’s too late. Now is the time to think about Lean.
5. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
“The most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle.”
This book offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover.
While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies.
Filled with his trademark humor and straight talk, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz’s personal and often humbling experiences.
6. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”
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.
7. The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
“This is one of the innovator’s dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake.”
In this classic bestseller—one of the most influential business books of all time—innovation expert Clayton Christensen shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right—yet still lose market leadership.
Christensen explains why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. No matter the industry, he says, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know how and when to abandon traditional business practices.
Sharp, cogent, and provocative—and consistently noted as one of the most valuable business ideas of all time—The Innovator’s Dilemma is the book no manager, leader, or entrepreneur should be without.
8. The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
“As you begin to think like an entrepreneur, you’ll notice that business ideas can come from anywhere.”
You no longer need to work nine-to-five in a big company to pay the mortgage, send your kids to school and afford that yearly holiday. You can quit the rat race and start-up on your own – and you don’t need an MBA or a huge investment to do it. The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau is your manual to a new way of living. Learn how to: – Earn a good living on your own terms, when and where you want – Achieve that perfect blend of passion and income to make work something you love – Take crucial insights from 50 ordinary people who started a business with $100 or less – Spend less time working and more time living your life
9. Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
“If circumstances change, your decisions can change. Decisions are temporary.”
Rework is a unique business book which shows the reader a better, faster, easier way to be successful in business. The book tells the reader why plans are truly harmful, why people don’t need outside investors and why a person is better ignoring the competition.
The book tells the reader what you really need to be successful which is to stop talking and start working. This book shows the reader the right way. It teaches the reader how to be more creative, how to get exposure without wasting money and tons of other senseless thoughts that will motivate and provoke the reader.
With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who’s ever dreamed of doing it on their own.
10. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
This book will teach you the secrets that could bring you a fortune. It will show you not only what to do but how to do it. Once you learn and apply the simple, basic techniques revealed here, you will have mastered the secret of true and lasting success.
Money and material things are essential for freedom of body and mind, but there are some who will feel that the greatest of all riches can be evaluated only in terms of lasting friendships, loving family relationships, understanding between business associates, and introspective harmony which brings one true peace of mind! All who read, understand, and apply this philosophy will be better prepared to attract and enjoy these spiritual values.
11. The 4- Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
“The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?”
Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, or earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.
This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:
• How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
• How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”
12, Crushing It by Gary Vaynerchuk
“Even if your ambitions are huge, start slow, start small, build gradually, build smart.”
In this lively, practical, and inspiring book, Gary dissects every current major social media platform so that anyone, from a plumber to a professional ice skater, will know exactly how to amplify his or her personal brand on each. He offers both theoretical and tactical advice on how to become the biggest thing on old standbys like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat; podcast platforms like Spotify, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, and iTunes; and other emerging platforms such as Musical.ly. For those with more experience, Crushing It! illuminates some little-known nuances and provides innovative tips and clever tweaks proven to enhance more common tried-and-true strategies.
Crushing It! is a state-of-the-art guide to building your own path to professional and financial success, but it’s not about getting rich. It’s a blueprint to living life on your own terms.
13. Start With Why by Simon Sinek
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”
Sinek starts with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over? They realized that people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it.
START WITH WHY shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
14. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
“Habit is the intersection of knowledge (what to do), skill (how to do), and desire (want to do).”
It is rightly said that habits make or break a man. If you want to know why you are not doing something right, sometimes all you need is to perform an analysis of your habits and consider altering them. Because sometimes it’s not about what you do, but more about how you do it! And that’s where your habits play a very important role.
‘The 7 habits of Highly Effective People’ is a book that aims at providing its readers with the importance of character ethics and personality ethics. The author talks about the values of integrity, courage, a sense of justice and most importantly, honesty. The book is a discussion about the seven most essential habits that every individual must adopt to in order to live a life which is more fulfilling.
15. The ONE Thing
“A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets.”
The book, The One Thing, explains how the habit to succeed can be incorporated in our life to overcome the hurdles like the lies that will block our success, the thieves that will steal our time and increase our concentration in the purpose, the way we prioritize and the productivity of our business. The book comes in handy for people indulged in business and helps them increase the efficiency of their work and remove the hindering factors. The book is easy to read and substantial in the ideas it conveys.
The One Thing is a book that focuses on how to avoid perplexing distractions that come on one’s way. By doing this, they can concentrate on the one thing that is the most important at that point of time.
Thanks for reading, this was my list on 15 best books for entrepreneurs.
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