Top 50 Books for Entrepreneurs

All entrepreneurs need advice. What better way to get helped through your next crisis than by picking the minds of some of today and yesterday’s greatest entrepreneurs. The following 50 books should keep you busy for awhile and teach you more than any college education.

The New Classics

Think of these soon to be classic business books as the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Think and Grow Rich for the 21st century.

	Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk
	Drive by Daniel H. Pink
	Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson
	Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah and David Meerman Scott
	Linchpin? Are You Indispensable by Seth Godin
	Made to Stick by Chip Heath
	Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
	Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson
	Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
	Switch by Chip and Dan Heath
	The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
	Tribes by Seth Godin

Business Strategy

These books will give you step-by-step, practical, guidelines to follow to improve your business.

	Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim
	Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder
	Driven: Business Strategy, Human Actions, and the Creation of Wealth by Joel Litman and Mark Frigo
	From Resource Allocation to Strategy by Joseph Bower
	Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims
	My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire by Michelle Goodman
	Predictable Success by Les McKeown
	Start Something that Matters by Blake Mycoskie
	Start with Why by Simone Sinek
	Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
	The Big Enough Company: Creating a Business That Works for You by Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams
	The Four Steps To The Epiphany by Steve Blank
	The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
	The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes, Jay Conrad Levinson and Michael Gerber

Startups

A “startup” is the modern term for a business that hasn’t quite found its business model yet. If this is you, you can learn a lot from these books that detail both the mistakes and success of various startup companies.

	Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup by Brad Feld and David Cohen
	Potemkin, Inc. by Philippe Joly
	Startup Weekend: How to Take a Company From Concept to Creation in 54 Hours by Marc Nager, Clint Nelsen and Franck Nouyrigat
	Street Smarts by Norm Brodsky
	The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
	The Startup Game by William H. Draper
	The Startup Owner’s Manual by Steve Blank

Marketing

Without a good strategy to make your business known, you’re destined for failure. The following marketing books will help you to think outside the box.

	All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin
	Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
	Purple Cow by Seth Godin
	Smarter, Faster, Cheaper by David Siteman Garland
	The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al Ries and Jack Trout
	The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself by John Jantsch
	UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging by Scott Stratton

Biographies

You might wonder what biographies are doing on a list of books for entrepreneurs. Yes, I know you have very little time, but reading about what other entrepreneurs have done in their businesses can give you great ideas about how to improve your own business.

	Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
	Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
	Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson
	Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace by Ricardo Semler
	Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
	The Smartest Guys In The Room: The Amazing Rise And Scandalous Fall Of Enron by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
	The Toyota Way by Jeffrey K. Liker
	What I Really Think: The Business Chapters by Jeff Rusinow