“What are the best books For Starting A Business?” We looked at 172 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

Below we ranked the top 35 titles, all appearing on 2 or more lists, by how many times they appeared on other “Best Books For Starting A Business” articles. The remaining 125+ books, as well as the articles we used, can be found in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

Top Books To Read For Starting A Business

35 .) Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace

Lists It Appears On:

• Wise Stamp
• BPlans

“Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”

For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, WALL-E, and Inside Out, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.”

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34 .) Disrupt You! by Jay Samit

Lists It Appears On:

• Inc.
• Shout Me Loud

“In today’s volatile business landscape, adaptability and creativity are more crucial than ever. It is no longer possible-or even desirable-to learn one set of job skills and to work your way up the ladder. At the same time, entrepreneurs with great ideas for new products or technologies that could change the world often struggle to capture the attention of venture capital firms and incubators; finding the funding necessary to launch a start-up can feel impossible. The business leaders of our future must anticipate change to create their own opportunities for personal satisfaction and professional success. In Disrupt You!, Jay Samit, a digital media expert who has launched, grown, and sold start-ups and Fortune 500 companies alike, describes the unique method he has used to invent new markets and expand established businesses.

Samit has been at the helm of businesses in the ecommerce, digital video, social media, mobile communications, and software industries, helping to navigate them through turbulent economic times and guide them through necessary transformation so that they stay ahead of the curve. In Disrupt You!, he reveals how specific strategies that help companies flourish can be applied at an individual level to help anyone can achieve success and lasting prosperity-without needing to raise funds from outside investors.

Incorporating stories from his own experience and anecdotes from other innovators and disruptive businesses-including Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, YouTube, Circ du Soleil, Odor Eaters, Iams, Silly Putty, and many more-Samit shows how personal transformation can reap entrepreneurial and professional rewards. Disrupt You! offers clear and empowering advice for anyone looking to break through; for anyone with a big idea but with no idea how to apply it; and for anyone worried about being made irrelevant in an era of technological transformation. This engaging, perspective-shifting book demystifies the mechanics of disruption for individuals and businesses alike.”

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33 .) Escape from Cubicle Nation by Pamela Slim

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Startup Daddy

“Pamela Slim, a former corporate training manager, left her office job twelve years ago to go solo and has enjoyed every bit of it.

In her groundbreaking book, based on her popular blog Escape from Cubicle Nation, Slim explores both the emotional issues of leaving the corporate world and the nuts and bolts of launching a business. Drawing on her own career, as well as stories from her coaching clients and blog readers, Slim will help readers weigh their options, and make a successful escape if they decide to go for it.”

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32 .) Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Beginner Business

Founders at Work recounts the early struggles for independence and acceptance of many of modern technology’s giants, through personal interviews that are at times hilarious, at times painful, and always inspiring. As human-interest stories they will interest the same audience that enjoys reading about the Google founders in PEOPLE magazine. These stories are exceptionally interesting, because they’re about the early stages, when the founders were younger and inexperienced. Most readers know startup founders only as confident millionaires. As novices trying to find their way by trial and error, they’re more human, and easier for the reader to identify with.

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31 .) Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

Lists It Appears On:

• Beginner Business
• Startup Daddy

In today’s world, yesterday’s methods just don’t work. In Getting Things Done, veteran coach and management consultant David Allen shares the breakthrough methods for stress-free performance that he has introduced to tens of thousands of people across the country. Allen’s premise is simple: our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective productivity and unleash our creative potential.

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30 .) Good Luck: Creating the Conditions for Success in Life and Business by Alex Rovira

Lists It Appears On:

• Business
• Forbes

Good Luck is a whimsical fable that teaches a valuable lesson: good luck doesn’t just come your way—it’s up to you to create the conditions to bring yourself good luck. Written by Alex Rovira and Fernando Trias de Bes—two leading marketing consultants—this simple tale is universally applicable and uniquely inspirational. Good Luck tells the touching story of two old men, Max and Jim, who meet by chance in Central Park fifty years after they last saw each other as children. Max achieved great success in life; Jim sadly did not. The secret to Max’s success lies in a story his grandfather told him long ago. This story within a story has a tone reminiscent of the classic The Alchemist and shows how to seize opportunity and achieve success in life. In a surprise ending, Good Luck comes full circle, offering the reader inspiration, instruction, and an engaging tale.

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29 .) Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins

Lists It Appears On:

• Lemonstand
• Business Insider

“The Challenge:
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning.

But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

The Study:
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

The Standards:
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world’s greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

The Comparisons:
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?”

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28 .) Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days by Jay Conrad Levinson and Al Lautenslager

Lists It Appears On:

• Beginner Business
• BPlans

“Too many small and mid-sized businesses offer gold-medal quality and service yet struggle to pay their bills and stay in business. What they need are guerrilla marketing weapons to put energy behind their dreams. This indispensable nuts-and-bolts guide outlines every weapon you need to make a significant bottom-line difference in your company.
These weapons will add potency to your marketing attack and substantially increase profits. They work for all types of small and medium businesses, even nonprofit organizations. Among them are fourteen powerhouse weapons for start-up businesses and five substantial lifts to already running operations. All are inexpensive to implement, and fully half of them are cost-free.”

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27 .) Lucky Or Smart? by Bo Peabody

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Self Thrive

At twenty-seven, Bo Peabody was an Internet multi-millionaire. He has co-founded five different companies, in varied industries, and made them thrive during the best and worst of economic times. Through it all, the one question everyone asks is: Was it his smarts that made him an entrepreneurial leader, or was it just plain luck? The truth is, Bo was smart enough to know when he was getting lucky. And he wants you to have the same advantage. With proven methods for success and a witty, conversational voice, Bo takes the reader through the lessons his experiences as an entrepreneur have taught him. At the heart of Bo’s manifesto is a mantra that everyone, whether working for a multinational corporation or a solo start-up, should heed: If you want your business to be successful, make sure your work is fundamentally innovative, morally compelling, and philosophically positive. Lucky or Smart? will teach you how to put yourself in a position to get lucky, create the right situations for success, and take advantage of every opportunity. It is the first truly authentic guide to an entrepreneurial life, a must read for anyone looking for his or her own road to fulfillment.

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26 .) Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Shout Me Loud

“Having inspired generations of consultants and entrepreneurs around the world, the “Rock Star of Consulting” Alan Weiss returns with a revised and completely updated edition of his authoritative guide to consulting success.

Weiss provides his time-tested model on creating a flourishing consulting business, while incorporating and focusing on the many dynamic changes in solo and boutique consulting, coaching, and entrepreneurship.”

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25 .) Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi

Lists It Appears On:

• Beginner Business
• Business Insider

“Do you want to get ahead in life? Climb the ladder to personal success?

The secret, master networker Keith Ferrazzi claims, is in reaching out to other people. As Ferrazzi discovered in early life, what distinguishes highly successful people from everyone else is the way they use the power of relationships—so that everyone wins.
In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his contacts list, people he has helped and who have helped him. And in the time since Never Eat Alone was published in 2005, the rise of social media and new, collaborative management styles have only made Ferrazzi’s advice more essential for anyone hoping to get ahead in business.

The son of a small-town steelworker and a cleaning lady, Ferrazzi first used his remarkable ability to connect with others to pave the way to Yale, a Harvard M.B.A., and several top executive posts. Not yet out of his thirties, he developed a network of relationships that stretched from Washington’s corridors of power to Hollywood’s A-list, leading to him being named one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 and selected as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the Davos World Economic Forum.

Ferrazzi’s form of connecting to the world around him is based on generosity, helping friends connect with other friends. Ferrazzi distinguishes genuine relationship-building from the crude, desperate glad-handing usually associated with “networking.” He then distills his system of reaching out to people into practical, proven principles.”

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24 .) Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Lists It Appears On:

• Business Insider
• Your Story

“In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “”outliers””–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. “

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23 .) Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

Lists It Appears On:

• Business Insider
• Your Story

Demonstrates the need for companies to develop innovative products, services, and techniques that consumers will seek out, and provides examples of successful marketers in today’s changing economy.

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22 .) Start Run & Grow a Successful Small Business by Toolkit Media Group

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Self Thrive

Fully updated with new laws and regulations, this comprehensive resource provides current and prospective small-business owners valuable insight and guidance for not only starting a business, but also successfully running one. Included are suggestions for marketing wisely and cheaply; tips for managing cash flow, including credit and collections; techniques for creating a business plan that serves as an organizational blueprint and earns financial backing; and suggestions for how to control your tax liabilities. Effective approaches to managing human resources are also examined, including payroll, benefits, hiring, and firing.

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21 .) The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen

Lists It Appears On:

• Favobooks
• The Conversation

“His work is cited by the world’s best-known thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell. 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.”

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20 .) The School of Greatness by Lewis Howes

Lists It Appears On:

• Tech.co
• Inc.

“When a career-ending injury left elite athlete and professional football player Lewis Howes out of work and living on his sister’s couch, he decided he needed to make a change for the better. He started by reaching out to people he admired, searching for mentors, and applying his past coaches’ advice from sports to life off the field. Lewis did more than bounce back: He built a multimillion-dollar online business and is now a sought-after business coach, speaker, and podcast host.

In The School of Greatness, Howes shares the essential tips and habits he gathered in interviewing “”the greats”” on his wildly popular podcast of the same name. In discussion with people like Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson and Pencils of Promise CEO Adam Braun, Howes figured out that greatness is unearthed and cultivated from within. The masters of greatness are not successful because they got lucky or are innately more talented, but because they applied specific habits and tools to embrace and overcome adversity in their lives.

A framework for personal development, The School of Greatness gives you the tools, knowledge, and actionable resources you need to reach your potential. Howes anchors each chapter with a specific lesson he culled from his greatness “”professors”” and his own experiences to teach you how to create a vision, develop hustle, and use dedication, mindfulness, joy, and love to reach goals. His lessons and practical exercises prove that anyone is capable of achieving success and that we can all strive for greatness in our everyday lives.”

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19 .) Think Big, Act Bigger by Jeffrey W. Hayzlett with Jim Eber

Lists It Appears On:

• Shout Me Loud
• Inc.

Global business celebrity and prime-time Bloomberg Television host, Jeffrey W. Hayzlett empowers business leaders to tie their visions to actions, advancing themselves past competitors and closer to their business dream. Drawing upon his own business back stories including his time as CMO of Kodak and sharing examples from the many leaders featured on “The C-Suite with Jeff Hayzlett,” Hayzlett imparts ten core lessons that dare readers to own who they are as a leader and/or company, define where they want to go, and fearlessly do what it takes to get there—caring less about conventional wisdom, re-framing limitations, and steamrolling obstacles as they go.

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18 .) Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Lists It Appears On:

• Big Time Small Business
• Startup Daddy
• Passion For Business

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.

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17 .) Start Your Own Business: The Only Start-Up Book You’ll Ever Need by Rieva Lesonsky

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Self Thrive
• Shout Me Loud

Make your dreams of starting a business come true! Packed with expert advice, this book demystifies the start-up process with plain-English answers to the most commonly asked questions about starting a small business.

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16 .) The Barefoot Executive by Carrie Wilkerson

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Shout Me Loud
• Self Thrive

Whether it’s a service, a product, or your insight or expertise, you already have the raw materials necessary to transform your life. Carrie will walk you through the process of building the business you need to achieve the life you want. Her guidance is practical. No philosophical silliness, no theoretical abstractions- just concrete action steps alongside insights from fellow entrepreneurs, interactive exercises, and links to Carrie’s online video coaching segments. It’s the next best thing to working one-on-one with her. The Barefoot Executive will have you energized by the possibilities and embracing the extraordinary life that is well within your reach.

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15 .) The Business Start-Up Kit by Steven D. Strauss

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Self Thrive
• Passion For Business

Aimed at aspiring entrepreneurs, this text covers the basics of running a business. Early chapters describe the risks and rewards of operating a home based business, running a franchise, or purchasing an existing business. Other topics include applying for a business loan, hiring employees, creating a marketing plan, and finding a good lawyer.

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14 .) The Startup Owner’s Manual by Steve Blank

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Lemonstand
• Shout Me Loud

“More than 100,000 entrepreneurs rely on this book for detailed, step-by-step instructions on building successful, scalable, profitable startups. The National Science Foundation pays hundreds of startup teams each year to follow the process outlined in the book, and it’s taught at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and more than 100 other leading universities worldwide. Why?

The Startup Owner’s Manual guides you, step-by-step, as you put the Customer Development process to work. This method was created by renowned Silicon Valley startup expert Steve Blank, acknowledged catalyst of the “”Lean Startup”” movement, and tested and refined by him for more than a decade. “

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13 .) Will It Fly? by Thomas K. McKnight

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Shout Me Loud
• Self Thrive

Will your new business idea fly? Find out upfront, before you invest one dime! Will It Fly? introduces the first intuitive, practical tool for assessing and refining new business ideas. Fast, confidential, and reliable, it addresses 44 key elements of success, distilling experience from more than 200 business launches. Use it to fine-tune your idea… protect yourself and your investors… quickly evaluate multiple options… and dramatically improve your odds of success. Indispensable for every entrepreneur, investor, and advisor… even corporate planners and “intrapreneurs”!

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12 .) Built to Last by Jim Collins & Jerry Porras

Lists It Appears On:

• Beginner Business
• Big Time Small Business
• Tech.co
• Lemonstand

“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.”

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11 .) Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, by Gary Vaynerchuk

Lists It Appears On:

• Big Time Small Business
• Shout Me Loud
• Money To The Masses
• Startup Daddy

Do you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night? Now is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love. In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver’s manual for modern business.

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10 .) Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini

Lists It Appears On:

• Fire Nation
• Business Insider
• Your Story
• Beginner Business

“Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say “”yes””—and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His thirty-five years of rigorous, evidence-based research along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior has resulted in this highly acclaimed book.

You’ll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself against them. Perfect for people in all walks of life, the principles of Influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a driving force for your success.”

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9 .) Zero to One by Peter Thiel

Lists It Appears On:

• Beginner Business
• My Startup CEO
• Wise Stamp
• Lemonstand

“The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.

Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.

Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.

Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.”

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8 .) The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• Shout Me Loud
• The Simple Dollar
• BPlans
• Wise Stamp

“Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.

There are many others like Chris – those who’ve found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful. Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn’t depend on shelving what you currently do. You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you’re sure it’s successful.

In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.”

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7 .) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

Lists It Appears On:

• The Simple Dollar
• Beginner Business
• Startup Daddy
• Big Time Small Business
• Your Story
• Business Insider

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has guided generations of readers for the last 25 years. Presidents and CEOs have kept it by their bedsides, students have underlined and studied passages from it, educators and parents have drawn from it, and individuals of all ages and occupations have used its step-by-step pathway to adapt to change and to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.

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6 .) The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber

Lists It Appears On:

• Beginner Business
• Fire Nation
• Shout Me Loud
• Startup Daddy
• Wise Stamp
• Lifehack

Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. He walks you through the steps in the life of a business from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed. He then shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business whether or not it is a franchise. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have read The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.

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5 .) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Lists It Appears On:

• Tech.co
• Beginner Business
• Business Insider
• Fire Nation
• Shout Me Loud
• Your Story
• The Simple Dollar

“You can go after the job you want—and get it!

You can take the job you have—and improve it!

You can take any situation—and make it work for you!

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”

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4 .) The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

Lists It Appears On:

• My Startup CEO
• Startup Daddy
• Big Time Small Business
• Fire Nation
• Lifehack
• BPlans
• Lemonstand

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.

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3 .) The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything by Guy Kawasaki

Lists It Appears On:

• Lifehack
• My Startup CEO
• Self Thrive
• Shout Me Loud
• Inc.
• The Simple Dollar
• BPlans
• Passion For Business
• Startup Daddy

A new product, a new service, a new company, a new division, a new organization, a new anything where there s a will, here’s the way.

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2 .) Rework by Jason Fried and David Hansson

Lists It Appears On:

• Fire Nation
• Favobooks
• BPlans
• Lifehack
• Your Story
• The Simple Dollar
• Shout Me Loud
• The Simple Dollar
• Money To The Masses

“Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you’re looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf.

Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don’t need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to staff up. You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don’t even need an office. Those are all just excuses.

What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You’ll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you.

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. Hardcore entrepreneurs, small-business owners, people stuck in day jobs they hate, victims of “”downsizing,”” and artists who don’t want to starve anymore will all find valuable guidance in these pages.”

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1 .) The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Lists It Appears On:

• Entrepreneur
• Business
• My Startup CEO
• Independent
• Tech.co
• Beginner Business
• Fire Nation
• Lifehack
• Shout Me Loud
• The Simple Dollar
• BPlans
• Wise Stamp
• Lemonstand

“Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs – in companies of all sizes – a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.”

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