Business Books for Startups - the Startacus picks

by Startacus Admin

Here at Startacus we really do appreciate the value of business knowledge and experience. We’re all for people who’ve been there and done that, who pass on their knowledge in a way that makes real practical sense.

That knowledge might get passed on through mentoring, through keynote speeches but often it’s simply through the written word. Yep. The ‘business’ books. Love ‘em or loathe ‘em - business books can sometimes make all the difference in moving an idea or project along or even in changing perspective and mindset. With this in mind we thought we would list some of the best such books we’ve come across - some we’ve read, some we’ve been recommended to read - they’re in the ‘to read next’ pile!

They all though have plenty of words of wisdom for those of us who are on the self employment journey. So if that’s you too? Read on...

The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses

Relevant to anyone starting up with a tight budget, the Lean Startup philosophy is an approach which enables startups to launch, design and develop their products and services without spending a small fortune. Read and practiced the world over, the Eric Ries philosophy is a favourite within both the technology sector and startups in general.

Emma Jones is the Founder of small business support company, Enterprise Nation and co-founder of StartUp Britain, a UK national campaign to celebrate enterprise. It makes sense therefore that she wrote a book that highlights (as the title suggests!) ‘everything you need to start a small business’. Seeing as Startacus is all about helping provide self starters with the tools, inspiration and motivation to do just that, we thought it only fair to include this one!

The $100 Startup: Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love and Work Better to Live More

Chris Guillebeau is the author of this book and also the famous The Art of Non-Conformity blog and book. Made famous for trekking around the globe, travelling, writing about travelling and never really holding down a full time job, he does however have a real knack for writing and turning a story into a cash cow - something which is proven with this leading and popular startup book. After speaking with around 1,500 entrepreneurs who started their businesses on little to no money (hence the rather catchy $100 Startup title) he spreads the knowledge to us the reader on what they did right and wrong to build ‘that’ business - in essence making money from telling us all how people made money from no money - genius!

Who Moved My Cheese: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

This book is like, an analogy for the options you have in life and business and the decisions you can make (dude). Featuring 2 mice and 2 little human characters it launched back in the late 1990’s and has been a popular and acclaimed business book ever since. N.B - I promised to make no cheesy jokes to describe this book.

Build a Business From Your Kitchen Table

Build a Business from your Kitchen Table is the tale of the notonthehighstreet.com Founders, Sophie Cornish and Holly Tucker who highlight how they started a business from (yep you guessed it) home. A similar tale to many self made self starters, this is a handy book for anyone looking to juggle the enormity of starting a business whilst managing a home and family (and indeed life in general!)

Tribes: We need you to lead us

Anyone looking to build a community (tribe), or create a movement, and collective togetherness, should read this book. Seth Godin is a marketing guru, world famous blogger and author and has done a pretty good job of building ‘tribes’ himself. It stands to sense then that apart from walking the walk, he can talk it too. This book tries to outline how you can create a ‘tribe’ too - it’s invaluable for any business looking to build an on or offline community.

How To Be Free

This book isn't about being an entrepreneur, or innovator or any of that - it is though about doing that thing that you love (whatever that may be.)  Since that’s the whole ethos of Startacus, we had to include it on our list. As the Amazon description itself highlights: Read How To Be Free and learn how to throw off the shackles of anxiety, bureaucracy, debt, governments, housework, moaning, pain, poverty, ugliness, war and waste, and much else besides. - Sounds alright eh?

If you think of yourself as a potential 1st class author, you might like our previous article on Self Publishing - the basics

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Published on: 16th April 2013