There's no shortage of startup books. Most of them you can skip. I'm a product management coach and consultant with 25 years in tech startups, and this is the list I wish I'd had when I was a founder. I recommend it to anyone who tells me they're thinking about building something, organized by where you are in the journey - not alphabetically, and not by how famous the author is. I’m always happy to talk: https://zcal.co/jhm.
Books
Before/during early building, these are the books I normally suggest. Any one of them will help you validate your idea and turn it into a real opportunity before you invest time and money.
Do you all have a general idea of the kind of problem you want to solve? Do you need to validate that your target market sees the same problem? Or are people saying nice, encouraging things, and you're worried they aren't giving you helpful feedback?
- The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You, by Rob Fitzpatrick (Author | Amazon | Kindle)
Are you building a consumer business, and you want to validate demand before investing heavily?
- The Right It: Why So Many Ideas Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeed, by Alberto Savoia (Author | Amazon | Kindle)
Do you want a full roadmap, from ideation through launch, and you know you need to start with demand validation?
Equity splits, roles, decision-making authority, what happens if someone leaves: these are uncomfortable but critical conversations to have with your cofounder.
- The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup, by Noam Wasserman (Author | Amazon | Kindle)
Do you have a product or prototype, but now you're realizing that you need to niche down to your initial ICP (the one for whom the product you're solving is Oxygen or Aspirin level, not just Vitamin)?
Do you feel overwhelmed by the need, as a founder, to do sales (even though you know founder-led selling is the fastest path towards PMF)? This book breaks it down to very concrete, actionable steps - and it’s available free online, too.
Are you struggling to have useful conversations with your engineers or technical cofounder? Do they keep building something different than what you had in your head?
Is everyone around you throwing around terms like "MVP," "pivot," and "build-measure-learn," and you want to understand where those ideas actually came from and what they really mean?
- The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries (Author | Amazon | Kindle)
Where are classics like Zero to One and The Hard Thing About Hard Things? Both are more inspirational than instructional, and I'm focusing on books that are concrete and actionable, regardless of whether your startup succeeds or fails.
And that’s also why I’m leaving out memoirs, newsletters, podcasts, and especially Twitter. Survivorship bias is a hell of a drug, and you don’t have time for that.
Other books for later on
These are great books for after you have a team and funding. They are also helpful if you’re joining a tech startup and haven’t worked in that kind of company before.
Do you and your cofounders need to get on the same page about how a funded tech startup operates?
How does software engineering work at modern tech companies?
Are you getting ready to raise a VC round and want to understand what you're actually signing before you sign it?
- Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist, by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson (Author | Amazon | Kindle)
How to talk to colleagues without being an a-hole?
Is your organization growing, and you’re trying to figure out how to make it grow in sensible ways?
- Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow, by Matt Skelton & Manuel Pais (Author | Amazon | Kindle)
Do people keep talking about “agile” or “scrum” and you have no idea what they mean?
- Learning Agile: Understanding Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban, by Jennifer Greene & Andrew Stellman (Author | Amazon | Kindle)
Slacks and other communities
- Rand’s Leadership Slack: https://randsinrepose.com/welcome-to-rands-leadership-slack/. It’s free, very large, and very well run. It’s overall more engineering-focused, but plenty of channels for founders and entrepreneurs.
- Lenny Rachitsky’s Slack: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/community. It’s more expensive at $150/year but comes with his newsletter subscription and thousands in free tools.
- I’ve heard great things about On Deck’s communities and the First Round Capital's community resources but I haven’t used either myself.
If you join any of these please look me up and reach out!