- Play Bigger – Dave Peterson, Al Ramadan, Christopher Lochhead, & Kevin Maney
Creating something new is great but if you want to build a high growth company it is no longer enough to create great new products. Startups and innovative companies must create whole new categories that destroy old ones. That’s how Unicorns are made and this book is the guide to doing just that.
- The Power of Social Innovation – Stephen Goldsmith
This book is great for any in the civic space or those trying to target the civic space such as governments, foundations, nonprofits. It does a great job of outlining the complex civic environments in which so many businesses are trying to navigate.
- Business Model Generation – Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
This book will teach you how to systematically understand, design, and implement a game-changing business model. It is a useful tool to understand at a deeper level your customers, distribution channels, partners, revenue streams, costs, and core values.
- The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development – Brant Cooper
This easy guide provides a four-step framework for helping startups discover and validate their customers, product, and go-to-market strategy. It guides entrepreneurs through finding early adopters, building a minimum viable product, finding product-market fit, and establishing a sales and marketing roadmap.
- Lean B2B – Etienne Garbugil
This is a great layout for selling on businesses; although it is rooted in selling software, the principles can apply to most all businesses. It gives a great mix of formulating a sell, information gathering, introducing a solution, thinking through your team needs, knowing the jury you are trying to convince, money mapping, creating offers, and so much more.
- Do More Faster – Brad Feld and David Cohen
This quick, easy read is a collection of advice that provides practical insights into early stage entrepreneurship. It contains sections, each focusing on a major theme within the TechStars program, including idea and vision, fundraising, legal and structure, and work/life balance. This is an excellent resource to begin thinking innovatively and avoid some of the common pitfalls faced by entrepreneurs.
- Venture Deals – Brad Feld, Jason Mendelseon, and Dick Costolo
This resource outlines the essential elements of the venture capital term sheet – from terms related to economics to terms related to control. It strives to give a balanced view of the particular terms along with the strategies to getting a fair deal. It is also a good introduction to the various participants in the process of fundraising.
- The Lean Startup – Eric Ries
The lean startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. It teaches methods to shift directions with agility, shortening product development cycles, measuring actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learning what customers really want.
- Mastering the Rockefeller Habits – Verne Harnish
This book goes into depth on practical habits that you can implement to enhance the performance of your company. Topics include determining priorities, gathering necessary data, and establishing a company rythm and culture.