It’s that time of year again. Families are back from vacation, students return to school, and slowly but surely the gears of the work world start to grind again.
While only a month away, we want to keep your fall reading list stocked and ready with brain food, so here are 7 amazing reads you should dive into in the upcoming season.
#1 – “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz
In this book, Horowitz provides honest and practical advice on navigating the challenges of leading and managing a startup, exploring the difficult decisions and obstacles faced during the scaling of his own business.
Covering a range of topics such as dealing with failure, making tough calls, managing and motivating teams, and navigating the complexities of leadership, Horowitz offers valuable insights, real-world anecdotes, and actionable advice for entrepreneurs and leaders facing the inevitable struggles of building and running a company.
This book is for the founders who:
- Run from conflict and can’t get over decision paralysis during tough times.
- Need to hear the hard truths about business and leadership.
- Are in the thick of scaling their startup and trying to deal with the struggles of scaling.
#2 – “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore
Addressing the common challenge of moving your startup from early adopters to mainstream markets, Crossing the Chasm is the book to read to learn all about marketing and selling high-tech products.
Exploring the challenges startups face in reaching broader audiences with disruptive products, the book offers strategies for successfully crossing this chasm by focusing on a specific niche, creating a compelling value proposition, and building a strong market presence – plus it has great templates and frameworks to use in your own marketing!
This book is for the founders who:
- Got their first handful of customers and are ready to reach the masses.
- Want tools to better understand their potential markets and how to connect with them.
- Struggle to move their product beyond their early adopters.
#3 – “Measure What Matters” by John Doerr
John Doerr introduces the concept of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) as a framework for setting and achieving ambitious goals (the only kind of goal founders know 😉), outlining how OKRs help organizations focus on what matters most by driving alignment and tracking progress effectively.
Using examples from companies like Google and Intel, Doerr illustrates how to implement OKRs to improve performance, foster transparency, and create a culture of accountability. The book guides readers on how they can set clear objectives for their strategies, define measurable results, and use data to drive decision-making and track success.
This book is for the founders who:
- Struggle to get organized (we’ve all been there) and focus on a single objective.
- Love their data and want to use it to its full potential to drive success.
- Want to find ways to bring their team together around a common and clear goal.
#4 – The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth by Chris Zook and James Allen
The Founders Mentality explores the common challenges that companies face as they grow and how to maintain the entrepreneurial mindset that drives success.
Focusing on key issues that can stifle growth such as loss of focus, operational complexity, and organizational inertia, the book offers strategies for overcoming these challenges by fostering a strong sense of ownership and purpose among leaders and employees, maintaining a clear and compelling vision, and reinforcing a culture of innovation and adaptability.
This book is for the founders who:
- Want to stay agile and creative as they increase in size and complexity.
- Need strategies to keep the drive and address common growth-related issues.
- Find it difficult to maintain their vision and company culture as their startup expands.
#5 – “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie
In the startup world, sociability is crucial in attracting business, impressing investors, and growing your network of resources. If dealing with people isn’t your forte, this book offers timeless advice on building positive relationships and effective communication to do so.
Carnegie dives into the principles for improving social skills, gaining trust, and influencing people in a way that fosters cooperation and respect. Emphasizing the importance of empathy and understanding in personal and professional interactions, he goes over a variety of topics such as showing genuine interest in others, giving compliments, listening actively, and addressing people’s needs and desires.
This book is for the founders who:
- Self-identify as introverts who avoid social settings like the plague.
- Seek to refine their communication skills for more engagement and impact .
- Want to learn how to manage and nurture their growing network of contacts.
#6 – “Blitzscaling” by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh
New startup buzzword: Blitzscaling. In this book, Hoffman and Yeh explore the strategies and principles for scaling a company at an exponential pace, providing a framework for getting your businesses from 1 to 1 billion as quickly as possible.
Referencing insights from successful companies like LinkedIn, Airbnb, and Dropbox, the authors provide advice on how to scale aggressively while managing the complexities of rapid expansion, highlighting essential concepts such as prioritizing speed over efficiency, evolving culture through the lifecycle, and managing growth chaos.
This book is for the founders who:
- Want to aggressively scale – very very fast.
- Seek to mitigate the obstacles and challenges that come with rapid growth.
- Are typically more risk tolerant and ready to take on uncertain markets.
#7 – “High Growth Handbook” by Elad Gil
In his book, Elad Gil, a seasoned entrepreneur and investor, provides actionable advice for scaling startups from 10 to 1,000+ employees while effectively managing the rapid growth period.
Covering a range of topics for high-growth companies, Gil provides guidance around hiring strategies, organizational structure, fundraising methods, and operational scaling among many other points. The book is packed with practical advice, both first-hand from his experience as a founder as well as anecdotes from fellow industry experts, designed to help founders build strong teams, optimizing operations, and prepare for future growth.
This book is for the founders who:
- Are experiencing the early stages of scale and need better strategies to manage it.
- Want to better understand investor nature and perfect their funding-readiness.
- Wants to build high-performing teams to streamline the scaling process.
