Best books to read BEFORE starting a company?

I'm a big fan of "Rework" from Jason Fried and DHH. It does a great job breaking down a lot of false assumptions people have about starting a business and what you think you need to be doing compared to what you actually should be doing/focused on.

Here are a few of my favorite resources around startups and bootstrapping.

https://www.collorem.com/Startups

I found Zero to One by Peter Thiel to be super helpful in thinking about the type of business to start and especially how to position yourself. It's especially useful for startups and understanding that you are aiming to become a monopoly in your field, not to compete.

The Mom Test. Unless you are not worried about building something nobody else needs, you need to learn how to have effective converstations with future customers and figure out if you are solving an actual problem.

This book is suggested by a lot of successful founders :

The hard thing about hard things

None! 😄

Better to just start a venture and figure things out for yourself. Many books present an idealistic journey or something that worked for one person, but won't work for another.

Of the many business books I've read, few (none?) seem to touch on the hardest aspects of entrepreneurship, like managing your own emotions.

In saying that, if you do want to read something, I'd recommend:

• The Entrepreneur Revolution
• The Startup Owners Manual
• DOTCOM Secrets
• Think & Grow Rich
• How to Win Friends & Influence People
• The Personal MBA
• The Lean Startup
• Traction
• Hooked