What books do you recommend?

The Books in my library that I have and recommend are:

1. The Web Startup Success Guide, by Bob Walsh

2. Business of Software, by Michael A. Cusumano

3. Micro-ISV From Vision to Reality, by Bob Walsh

And once you're ready to take the next step:

1. Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey A. Moore

I wrote my list a while ago here.

Other books not included in that list:

• Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer’s Guide to Launching a Startup, by Rob Walling
• Rework, Jason Fried at al.
• Business Model Generation, by Alex Osterwalde et al.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen Covey

• I like The Five Dysfunctions of a Teamby Patrick Lencioni
• I really like The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
• I have greatly benefited from Change Your Questions, ChangeYour Life by Marilee Adams
• Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish is also a great help

A couple come to mind:

The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman (About IDEO): Great look at a truly creative company.

The No Asshole Rule by Robert I. Sutton: Brilliant advice on dealing with difficult people.

Managing Humans by Michael Lopp: Wonderful stories and insights into a Silicon Valley Software Manager.

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark: If you blog, this is a must. Great tools for making your prose effective.

Oh boy, I'm late to this party. :-) And the Stackoverflow discussion format isn't ideal for these long-winded opinion discussions.

One excellent book that is missing in the answers above is Jerry Kaplan's Startup (a Silicon Valley Adventure). It is a horrible, vivid retelling of the story of Go Computers, how the founders worked like madmen, how Jerry more or less missed out on his Fathers death because he was so busy saving his company, and how the company eventually went bankrupt.

This book tells you about the 'other side', how bad things can go -- don't ever let that demotivate you, but stay aware of it and make smart decisions... :-)

I have read many business books, and two that sticks to my mind are:

e-myth by Michael Gerber

and

Getting things done by David Allen

The first one is about growing from one person to employing staff, and all the problems in between, about trust, delegation, etc.. Just look at the reviews on amazon, you will see it's a must read.

Getting Things Done (GTD) really helped me with getting organized, especially with the flow of emails I receive every day, and the 500 tasks that always seem to crop up on you when you start a business.

I have read many of the books answered. Founders at work and How to win friends and influence people along with Getting Real are awesome for various reasons. I am not from a technical background and wondering a good book I should read if I was to dive deeper in this area. I have a list of great reads on my blog (from an aspiring entrepreneur).

For more of a "case study" type of story, I suggest reading Jerry Kaplan's book, "Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure". He chronicles his time as cofounder of Go Corporation. Its a lesser known story, but involves a lot of the famous silicon valley moguls who made it big. I think of it as a behind the scenes tale of what went on in other valley companies while everyone was enchanted with Microsoft and Apple.

Jerry's book has inspired me because it is told from his point of view as a genuine entrepreneur and gives a lot of the gritty details of what really goes on in the meeting room. Also really interesting to hear what guys like Bill Gates were like back in the day.

Everyone starting a business should read The Ten Day MBA. It covers all the basics of bookkeeping, accounting, finance, and management. It's a good crash-course introduction to the business world. It also makes a nice refresher if you've been out of biz school for a bit.

Here's a good list of books i follow, from different areas of doing business:

http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/

I think which book you read depends on which is most relevant to you now, and which part of your business you are focusing on.

Very surprised that everyone is not listing "Good to Great". It should be required reading for any business leader.

Also glad to see the references to The E-Myth Revisited. It really made me think about how to build software and run a software company.

Newbies on this site can only post one link per comment so I created this blog post listing the 10 books I think every entrepreneur should read:

10 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read

One book that I continue to re-read whenever I need some inspiration is

"The Republic of Tea" by Mel & Patricia Ziegler

Be sure to read The Dip by Seth Godin. I think it covers the number one problem of building any company and ways to approach and overcome it.

Seth Godin's The Purple Cow is the single best book on building business and products that I've read.

A Good one for me was Bob Walsh's Web Startup Success Guide

A couple of my favorites have been mentioned including "Getting Real" and "The Art of The Start". I also like "Blue Ocean". It's a great look into competing in highly competitive markets and creating totally new markets. I find myself rereading it on an ongoing basis. -Kevin

Some of my recent favorite books include:

1) Borrowing Brilliance 2) The Four Hour Work Week 3) Tribes 4) Book Yourself Solid 5) The Irresistible Offer 6) Good Business, Leadership, Flow and the Making of Meaning

I have a bunch of summaries at a site I do as a side project, "Squeezed Books"

http://www.squeezedbooks.com

Most of the books are things I've purchased myself for my own edification and then summarized for the site.

The books that are best summarized tend to be ones that are perhaps not worth owning if you have a limited budget - they're the ones that take a core idea that could be described in a brief article and try and drag a book out of it.

In any case, some of my favorites:

"Information Rules" It covers the economics of many high tech goods, which is timeless information - it will still be valid even if the underlying technology changes.

"In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters" This looks at a lot of failures, rather than just "rah-rah" success stories.

"Founders at Work" is good because it covers so many different types of success and company (well, they're all high tech, but still).

Paul Hawken's "Growing a Business" is an oldy but a goody. It says a lot of what you can find in other, later books in a very approachable way. Also, the fact that he's not talking about high tech, and yet his advice still rings true makes it a good read - it's passed the test of time.

P.S. now I remember why I found StackOverflow so annoying at the beginning. Every time I tried to do something it was "Dave, I can't let you do that... you have to have X points". Bleagh. I have links to all those books on my summary site (although these are the good ones, you should buy them) that I can't add.

I would recommend Clayton Christensen "The Innovators Dilemma" and "The Innovators Solution", also anything by Peter F. Druckert.

Best

Thomas

Four Steps to the Epiphany (http://www.cafepress.co.uk/kandsranch.58024175) by Steve Blank (a very smart serial entrepreneur). Also Steve Blank's blog (steveblank.com/).

As an entrepreneur, my most valuable resource is my time. Which means that I need to make sure I get the most out of the books I do read.

In general, I find that most business books have a few good ideas, and a lot of irrelevant text. To get the most out of business books, I recommend either skimming though them or reading book summaries.

There are lots of different summaries providers, most provide some free trial of their books.

As for the books themselves, it depends on which stage you are currently on, and what you are looking to learn. If you are looking for business strategy books, I recommend blue ocean strategy and judo economics. Wikinomics is too boring and long to read, so skimming though the book summary might work. The long tail also has some interesting ideas.

If you are looking for a book that will get you started after you have your general direction and business strategy, I recommend the art of the start. If you are looking for time management advice, I recommend getting things done. If you are looking for a book on negotiations, I recommend bargaining for advantage (getting you yes is also good, but to simplistic for the real world in my opinion). If you need to know about product design, I recommend product design and development, 4th edition. It is incredible boring, but has some very good information in it.

There are tons of books on every subject, from marketing to finance to self help. Most of the books are not good, but once you start skimming though them or their summaries, you should spot the good ones very fast.

Also, universities usually have agreements with barns an nobles so that they have special sections in their websites where you can find which books are required reading for which subjects. If there is a subject you are interested in, you can see what the professors recommend you would read (without having to pay the tuition and spend the time doing any homework :) )

To be honest, after reading so many business books and being in the business for long time what I realized is:

• If you don't know what you are looking for...none of the books will help.

While good books always expands your thinking and horizon but no recipe for success.

It just your passion defines you and your company in the long run.

Just my two cents :-)

First, you need some inspiration for actually wanting to start a business, and then never give up once you face some hurdles.
Hackers & Painters is a great choice.

Next, business is all about people and connections so I'd go with these two:
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Never Eat Alone

New Rules for the New Economy is another must have - amazingly accurate 10 years later.

Some Seth Godin books are a must to start you on marketing:
Permission Marketing, Purple Cow

For the more strategic minded, these two are a must:
Crossing the Chasm (hopefully you get to the point where you need this)
The Innovator's Dilemma

Many more of course, but you gotta do some work, not just read all day...

Here's what' on my bookshelf as of now: http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2009/02/06/my-bookshelf/ - it's a mix of business, design and programming books. I'll focus this answer on the business books:

Many years ago I read the first half of "You need to be a little crazy", which made me realize that I wasn't ready to be an entrepreneur, saving me a lot of time and pain.

When I was ready to start up, I would say "Crossing the Chasm", "The Art of the Start", "Erik Sink on The Business of Software" and "micro-ISV, from vision to reality" are the ones where I got most value out of. "Founders at work" was also good to learn that a) there's no such thing as first mover advantage and b) your first idea is usually not what you end up doing, so just start with whatever you have.

Now that we're doing OK, "Growing a business" is one of my favorites.

Books I didn't like: "The 4 hour work-week" (lame, I LOVE to work all the time on what I'm passionate about), "Bootstrapped" (could the guy be more self-absorbed?) and Wikinomics (boring).

One of my favorite books is "Know-How. The 8 skills that separate people who perform from those who don't" by Ram Charam.

It's not a 'start your own business' book but a genuine management book. Now I know, you're thinking what the hell do I need with a management book when I want to start a business. Well, though you definitely need some specific skills while setting up your company (which you wont learn from in this book) you get a very accurate idea about how to run a business. And since a startup is A Business, his 8 skills are very valuable.

Now we all know that most management books are full of s$$t, using big words and some strange characteristics to describe good management (the charismatic leader?). This one skips all that esoteric junk and distillates it down to 8 necessary skills or know-how's you need to master to be successful. Why too many bright people with good intentions f$$k it up because they have no idea how to do things.

These ones, recommended by Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/08/books-for-entrepreneurs.html

Try Guy Kawasaki books, especially The Art of the start (http://astore.amazon.com/fx017-20/detail/1591840562). Also, Robert Kiyosaki books (namely Poor Dad/Rich Dad series), can help you reach something more ;)

We review business books all the time. If you are just getting started the E-Myth Revisited by Gerber is a classic. I liked Work the System by Sam Carpenter, which is a more recent book.

If you are less concerned about business start-up books, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely was an excellent book that looked at emerging thought in the area of behavioral economics that helps readers understand why customers buy. (This article summarizes some of the key points.) It really depends on what you want to read ... there is no shortage of good business books!