What books do you recommend?
Like everybody here, I am interested in starting a side hustle and eager to see what books people recommend to get started.
Although its not entrepreneurial, I recommend 'Eat That Frog!' by Brain Tracy as it offers some really great productivity advice -
My recommended reading for indie hackers:
I'll give the Steve Jobs biography an honorable mention, as it was interesting to see just how many times he failed and made poor decisions in his career. It gave me a lot more compassion for myself and my own failures.
Zero to One by Peter Thiel also deserves a mention. It has some good passages about the importance of targeting niches, avoiding competition, and trying to build a "monopoly."
Is that the Walter Isaacson Biography? I haven't read that yet, though Ben Franklin's biography by the same author is great (though very long).
One really interesting fact about Benjamin Franklin that I think a lot of indie hackers will be able to relate to: He ran a printing company, that provided services to other companies, though he also produced his own products for sale. I think most consultants/entrepreneurs will be able to relate to that. Food for thought.
https://makebook.io/
I've read a bunch of business books recently and only this one was worth the time.
What did you get out of Make book? I read it and didn't get much out of it.
This is a great book! It's also cool because it's more of a living and breathing document that gets edited and changed over time.
I've been curating a list of books for people making side projects, will be adding a few more recommended here!
https://books.makesideproject.com/
This is such a wonderful list, thanks for making it!
I can tell we have similar reading styles...there are so many on there I've already read...and yet so many I've never heard of.
Time to bookmark some new books from your list =)
Awesome, glad you like it!
In addition to the great books already mentioned:
If I could go back in time and give prior me a single indie-hacking related book, it would be The Millionaire Fastlane. Despite its cheesy title, it cuts to the core of the process more clearly than anything else I've read.
In order:
All these books have turned my life into a complete 180 in both the physical and mindset sense.
Good luck!!
Zero to One by Peter Thiel
What was one of your main takeaways from it?
This is one of my all-time favorite books that I go OUT of my way to recommend!
One of the overall points about how people look for competition, but the real idea should be to look where there is a market without any competition.
This one is my favorite for business, specifically the sales and marketing aspect of it. I have the audiobook and listen to it once a year to keep it fresh in my head.
The Brain Audit: Why Customers Buy (and Why They Don't)
https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Audit-Customers-They-Dont/dp/0473175045/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1530886201&sr=8-1&keywords=the+brain+audit
Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds like this is exactly what I need right now for my project (www.tribefive.me for reference).
Have you seen Simon Sinek's TEDTalk, Start with Why?
If so, does The Brain Audit have any overlap with this framework of first articulating WHY you are doing something, then the HOW, and finally the WHAT?
Not sure if there's any overlap with the Brain Audit since I haven't seen that talk yet. Thanks for the link though, I will check it out tonight. Sean D'Souza has a ton of written and audio content in the wild that you can check out if you don't want to buy the book yet.
I recommend to lay that book aside and get started. Life teaches the best lessons.
Running Lean by Ash Maurya
Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya
Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling
Another list here: http://www.founderbook.club/
Not really an ebook but since it's available as one and I think it's one of the most important pieces an IH can read:
The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce
Two books in the efficiency/health space:
The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First by Mark Hyman
Great read about how your life style and intake affect your brain. I like the scientific explanations and suggestions in the book.
Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World by Kelly Starrett
I just started it, but it is an easy read and seemed to have great advice on posture and taking care of your body.
Both books are not entrepreneurial, but staying healthy and being as alert and focused as possible are extremely important when trying to start a business. I ran a company for many years not paying attention to my body and started to pay the price a couple years ago.
I also really enjoyed Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hannson
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These are pretty valuable in my opinion:
If anyone is interested, I have a list of 50+ book suggestions that I've collected during the time!
Traction by Gabriel Weinberg.
It deals with the biggest challenge startups face these days - getting your first few customers. Startups don't die anymore because of technical challenges, they die because of a lack of traction.
The book gives you 24 traction channels and the Bullseye framework that will help you find an optimal traction channel for your business.
Delivering happiness by Tony Hsieh
@Lukebrown if you're interested in technical books too, I recommend Builder Book: https://builderbook.org/book
Full-disclosure, I am a coauthor :)
Our book teaches you how to build a full-stack web app from scratch. My coauthor and I have built multiple web apps together, and we wrote this book to help other developers do so.
The final app you build is the same one we use to publish + sell the book. You can mold it into anything you want and start a side-project or business (one of our readers did that!).
Hope this helps!
Startup Blueprint - 7 Skills for Founders, Builders & Leaders
http://www.contexthq.com/startupbp/
I'm biased, because I wrote it ;-)
Superforecasters by philip tetlock
'Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss'
He was the head of the FBI international hostage negotiation team and discovered he could apply the same techniques he learnt doing this within the business world.
Hands down one of the best books I've read and that actually works in real life. I've used the techniques I learnt in this book to get around people saying 'No' and have successfully used it to reduce my costs from suppliers. :)
Hey Luke! I created a pretty extensive list on my blog --> https://www.coreyhaines.co/blog/a-very-long-list-of-books-ebooks-and-guides-for-saas-marketing
In each section is a "if I could only recommend 3" that's probably helpful for you!
These two are perfect to begin with.
Great suggestions already.
I would also add Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
As for that Tracy's book, even though it is not the best book out there, I have special emotion for it as it helped me a lot when I went through the crisis in my life.
I randomly stumbled upon "The Great Beanie Baby Bubble" at my library. It was fantastic! Would highly recommend: https://amzn.to/2NsdxhI
The ONE thing: the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results - by Gary Keller
http://www.sarahnamulondo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/The-one-thing1.pdf
The One Thing by Gary Keller
Make by Pieter Levels
To understand how flawed and broken human beings are at making decisions:
To get a handle on how to deal customer discovery in B2B and B2C
Outside of that... Im starting to think books, podcasts, stories are a waste of time. Try shit, see the result, iterate. Repeat.
The One Thing
Evil By Design
Cashvertising
How to be a imperfectionist
I prefer Audio books (and Audible with a new Audio Book each month), the one's I have found the most helpful are:
Entrepreneurial Ones:
The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator by Randall Stross (About VC Funding but has useful practices)
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Startup CEO by Matt Blumberg
How to Start a business without any money by Rachel Bridge
Human Psychology:
The Chimp Paradox by Prof Steve Peters (Great why to understand how the mind works and why we are drawn to some actions)
Audio books are not different from books, they are just a very slightly different form of consumption.
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