What book are you reading?

This month is dedicated to reading books by Indie Hackers. It's always nice to support the community.

• Zero To Sold by @arvidkahl

Arvid is such a helpful member of this community and constantly dishes out knowledge. Have heard glowing reviews and decided to get this book. A few chapters in and I see that this is way more actionable than other books written about startups. Can't wait to dive in further.

• Landing Page Hot Tips by @robhope (aff link but hey, discount!)

I'm done with Landing Page Hot Tips and it's such a rich book with wonderful foundational tips and additional resources on how to produce landing pages. My friends also bought it and loved it - we're going to apply what we learned onto v2s of our side projects' landing pages.

I've also pre-ordered Tiny Design Lessons by @MarkBowley & Standing Out in 2020: Doing Content Right by @stephsmith, looking forward to reading.

"Ultralearning: Accelerate Your Career, Master Hard Skills and Outsmart the Competition" by "Scott H. Young". I am big fan of Cal Newport's works, since he has done some courses with Scott Young and recommends his book, picked it up now. I always have the habit of taking hard paths in learning and continue to learn nitty-gritty details of everything without applying the knowledge gained. Basically, Learning for the sake of learning. Hoping to see whether the insights from this book can make my learning more directed.

For context, I am currently a student and do not have a venture of my own that I'm currently working on. However, I do write (with hopes of one day either having paid content of sorts) and am in the process of figuring out what venture I'd like to start + pursue. That's why the books I'm reading are less directly related to the various aspects of bootstrapping a business.

"How to Take Smart Notes" by Sonke Ahrens
It's a deep dive into the note taking that made German sociologist Niklas Luhmann crazy productive in the academic world. Halfway finished and have already applied a handful of lessons and it's completely changed my workflows around how I take notes and consume media.

"Lost Connections" by Johann Hari
Explores the trends of increasing anxiety and depression in the U.S. and U.K. and proposes some causes backed by research done in the past few decades. Concludes with some suggestions on how we can improve the mental health of the western world. I found this fairly informative and actually linked very nicely with some of the ideas around community building and how we can "re-connect" as a society. Helped spark some ideas on some of the problems that have been amplified by COVID-19 and what possible solutions might be.

"Doughnut Economics" by Kate Raworth
Just starting this one and only a handful of pages in, but I enjoyed Raworth's Ted talk (by the same title) and wanted to dive deeper into her arguments. Essentially, she proposes new measures for economic well-being to look at aside from GDP and how we can go about re-designing out economic system to put these new measures at the forefront. I think we're starting to see more social-conscious ventures succeed (e.g. sustainable/ethical clothing lines), and thought this book might nicely align with any future projects I'd like to work on.

Currently reading "The Mom Test" by @robfitz, great book on getting better at talking to your users and figuring out what you should be building.

HOOKED by Nir Eyal 😍

And actually I'm hooked reading the book.

"how will you measure your life" by Clayton Christensen. Made me rethink a lot of my priorities in life. Makes a good pandemic time compass too.

Currently reading,

1. How to take smart notes by Sönke Ahrens
2. The Art of Thinking Clearly
   by Rolf Dobelli

I'm reading these books:

• The COMPLETE Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing by Tom Morkes
• Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal
• Zero to Sold: How to Start, Run, and Sell a Bootstrapped Business by Arvid Kahl

I'm reading right know "Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone". I'm not sure I'll get a lot of value out of it, but it's not that bad for now and it's pretty short, so why not.

I read just before "Keys to Great Writing" and I found it really, really good. Can be useful for somebody who wants to improve seriously his or her writing.

I have read "Lean Product Playbook".

I can't suggest you a great book except canonical one like "Lean Startup", "Zero to One" etc. But I can say don't lose time on "Lean Product Playbook" unless you're a real starter.

You can learn the same amount of knowledge by reading couple of articles @UX Collective or Toptal.

Not worth it.