Whether you’re a new entrepreneur, a business owner with a thriving enterprise, are aiming to hone your leadership skills or want to think differently about uncertainty and decision-making, it can be beneficial to find the best books for entrepreneurs. Readings for entrepreneurs can not only be about startups, but also about business management. The MIT Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship emphasizes books that are not normally associated with the world of entrepreneurship because concepts from psychology, sports, poker, habits and other disciplines can offer interesting insights for entrepreneurs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also offers books that touch on the development of startups, leadership, finance, innovation, scaling, productivity and personal growth.
What The Reason For Entrepreneurs To Read Business Books?
As a business owner, there are many types of decisions you will have to make throughout the course of your business concerning customers, employees, finances, product development, competition, leadership and growth. Reading books can offer frameworks and experiences to help readers not only consider these challenges from other angles but also to dig deeper into them.
When entrepreneurs read they can also get ideas on other topics they are not dealing with in their industry. This MIT article says that some lessons as an entrepreneur can be learned from lateral thinking, and from literature that isn’t necessarily about entrepreneurship. It refers to such books as Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, Antifragile, The Biggest Bluff and Think Again.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a more holistic perspective, making its recommendations based on various stages and needs, such as startup, growth, scaling and founder mindset.
Best Books For Entrepreneurs At The Start Up Stage
Entrepreneurship education is often needed to provide hands-on help for idea testing, product development, customer identification, resource mobilization and from planning to action.
Step-by-step Damn Thing Construction by Kathryn Finney
Build the Damn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business If You’re Not a Rich White Guy has a focus on starting and building a business, and covers access to resources, business planning, team growth, investor relationships and product development.
It’s part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s list of recommendations for startups, and it’s due to Finney’s focus on putting “what you can get” over “what you can wait for” that he’s getting attention.
This book could be useful for young people who are considering becoming entrepreneurs and are interested in thinking about entrepreneurship in terms of resources and accessibility.
Noah Kagan: Welcome to Million Dollar Weekend
While many people have a tendency to get bogged down in researching and planning, Noah Kagan’s Million Dollar Weekend is all about taking action. Starting small, testing ideas and learning through experimentation is highlighted in the U.S. Chamber’s description.
The overarching theme of the lesson is that an entrepreneur doesn’t have to predict all of the outcomes before taking action by interacting with real customers and testing assumptions.
The Greater Good by Madeleine Shaw
The Greater Good: Social Entrepreneurship for Everyday People Who Want to Change the World introduces the topic of social entrepreneurship and how personal experience, values, purpose and the creation of a business are intertwined.
The book’s emphasis on people who want to launch social-impact enterprises and its use of personal experience and values to help along the entrepreneurial path stand out, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says.
The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries
Lean Startup is all about experimentation and learning through experiments. Instead of taking a business concept for granted, the strategy enables entrepreneurs to experiment with their ideas, gain insights and make adjustments.
The U.S. Chamber’s description of the book is a “tool to try your entrepreneurial vision and make adjustments before your errors cost more.
This makes this book relevant to entrepreneurs who wish to create a process to better experiment and continuously improve.
The 48-Hour Start-up was a project by Fraser Doherty
48 Hours Start-Up: From Idea to Launch in 1 Weekend is about taking an idea from idea to launch with easy to use tools, and shortcuts.
It is part of the U.S. Chamber’s Startup Stage recommendations and stresses that it is concentrated on the creation and marketing of a product or service and not too much preparation to avoid action.
The Most Popular Books For Entrepreneurial Leadership
The key takeaway from this is that, in the long run, a business is bound to include other people. Leadership books could then be helpful for entrepreneurs that wish to build teams, have clear communication, manage challenging discussions, and build an effective organizational culture.
Brené Brown Dare to Lead
Dare to Lead explores leadership from the perspectives of courage, vulnerability, accountability and values.
It is recommended in the growth-stage section of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and is linked to good leadership.
This book offers a view of leadership that transcends authority and position in the business, for entrepreneurs with employees or team members.
Primal Leadership
Primal Leadership is a book written by Daniel Goleman, Richard E. Boyatzis and Annie McKee, which discusses emotional intelligence and how it is linked to leadership.
U.S. Chamber emphasizes the following themes in the book: Empathy, teamwork, motivation and emotionally intelligent leadership.
These are ideas that entrepreneurs may want to keep in mind when developing their relationships with their employees, customers, partners and other stakeholders.
Make good progress and correct things quickly.
In Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss explore how organizations can change and persist in both ways to build and keep trust and organizational effectiveness.
The U.S. Chamber calls the book “an exploration into the interconnections of speed, innovation, well being of workers, communication and trust.
This may apply to entrepreneurs that want to make adjustments rapidly without taking a backseat from their teams.
The best books for entrepreneurial finance will help you understand how to make a business thrive.
Business owners need to understand business finances to make sound decisions on pricing, staffing, investing, inventory, marketing and growth, as all of these decisions have financial implications.
Financial intelligence, Karen Berman & Joe Knight
Financial Intelligence: A Manager’s Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean is written to help those who do not want to become accounting specialists to understand business’s financial information.
The U.S. Chamber calls it a “how-to” guide to understanding business finances, financial statements, accounting concepts and financial strategies in general.
This kind of book may be helpful to those entrepreneurs who are more at ease with their product/service, but not so at ease when reading financial reports.
Business Scaling – Three Books To Read About Scaling A Business
As a business starts to grow, sometimes the challenges faced by the entrepreneur can alter. Instead of proving the concept, attention can now turn to design and creation of systems, allocation of capital, management of human resources, enhancement of operational efficiency, and questions of sustainable growth.
A framework for learning how to start businesses with integrity.A guide to principled entrepreneurship.
The Art of Principled Entrepreneurship: Creating Enduring Value” by Andreas Widmer has a people-centred approach to entrepreneurship.
Themes from U.S. Chamber including those related to values, culture, purpose, employees, customers and creating enduring value.
It is beneficial for an entrepreneur who is considering the effects of organizational values on an organization’s future.
Rounding the corners in the Age of AI
Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani looks at the ways in which AI can shape business strategy, and operating models.
The U.S. Chamber’s discussion features AI-driven processes, organizational support, evolving operating models, risks and responsibilities for implementing AI.
The book can offer a strategic view of AI adoption for entrepreneurs, rather than just on specific AI tools.
The Outsiders
The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike Jr. is about the unconventional CEOs and their strategies to allocating capital and managing the company.
The U.S. Chamber says that the book is about “disciplined decision-making and capital allocation,” based on the experiences of eight CEOs.
The subject matter may be particularly applicable to the entrepreneur who wishes to learn about the decisions long-term financial and strategic that leaders make.
The Science of Scaling
The Science of Scaling by Benjamin Hardy and Blake Erickson is about business growth and the obstacles businesses face as they try to grow.
The U.S. Chamber says that the book covers business-model changes, blind spots, growth pathways and a conscious scaling.
When reading scaling literature, entrepreneurs can consider if their processes, personnel, technology and/or business model are ready to scale.
The books below are the best to help build your entrepreneurial mindset.
There are also personal behaviors, decision making, adapting, bracing for the unexpected, and thinking differently that are part of entrepreneurship.
The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Deal with a Brothel by Maria Konnikova
The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win, from the Martin Trust Center at MIT, is a book that doesn’t directly address entrepreneurship, but has some lessons that are applicable to the entrepreneurial context
Maria Konnikova illuminates skill, good fortune, decision-making and uncertainty in the context of a poker game. MIT’s Bill Aulet discusses randomness and skill and how it relates to entrepreneurial decision making.
Being persistent is one of the key concepts that MIT emphasizes: perseverance must be followed with judgement. It’s important for entrepreneurs to know when to change or abandon a business idea because they may have invested a lot of effort into it so far.
Think Again: by Adam Grant
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant is about changing your mind and changing your mind-set.
Iteration is one of the key links to entrepreneurship that is highlighted by MIT’s Martin Trust Center. It’s article claims that entrepreneurial hypotheses are incomplete and that entrepreneurs should test and refine these hypotheses in the course of time.
This is why Think Again is important for business owners who wish to learn how to think differently and become more at ease with changing their thinking as evidence dictates.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book “Antifragile” is currently a bestseller.
MIT’s Bill Aulet states that the book that had the biggest impact on his thinking and practice of entrepreneurship is Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
This book is not a textbook to learn how to become an entrepreneur. Rather, its more general concepts of systems, uncertainty, volatility, and responses to disorder can stimulate readers to consider the behaviour of organisations in the face of disorder.
The Pyramid of Success was developed by Coach Wooden.
The other book featured by MIT’s Martin Trust Center is John Wooden’s Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, which is a non-business book.
The book’s lessons on coaching and performance are applicable to entrepreneurial behaviour and performance, and are included in MIT.
The point that it brings up is an important one about the best books for entrepreneurs—they can be useful books for business that were written in an unexpected field.
The books are used for personal development and productivity.
A successful entrepreneur is likely to have a number of competing priorities, develop routines and be productive over extended periods.
Atomic Habits is a book by James Clear. Atomic Habits, written by James Clear.
Atomic Habits is about building new habits in a way that leads to lasting change.
It is part of the U.S. Chamber’s founder mindset and leader inspiration category, noting that the U.S. Chamber focuses on systems and incremental improvements.
It can be used by entrepreneurs in their routines like planning, customer research, exercising, reading, financial reviews and other recurring activities.
The 7 Pairs of the Most Effective Individuals
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey are a set of principles for personal and professional effectiveness.
According to the U.S. Chamber, it is a book on the seven habits and how that applies to professional and personal problems, and continues to be relevant to entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs who are looking to learn structured techniques to prioritize, relate with others, and be effective could benefit from the book.
Work Smarter, by Nick Loper.
Work Smarter is a series of resources on communication, project management, networking, outsourcing and productivity.
The U.S. Chamber calls the book resource oriented, featuring hundreds of resources that are used by entrepreneurs.
It can thus be used in a different way than a business book would be used normally, offering not one particular theory, but a variety of helpful tools.
This Is The List Of Entrepreneurial Memoirs That Are Worth Reading
Another reason is that memoirs offer an alternative viewpoint because they trace the experiences of business decisions being made as opposed to entrepreneurship being taught as a set of frameworks.
The book Shoe Dog by Phil Knight can be summarized as follows:
In Shoe Dog: A Memoir of the Creator of Nike, Phil Knight’s story and that of Nike is told.
The U.S. Chamber calls attention to Knight’s recounting of missteps and challenges, sacrifices and struggles, and a long journey from its fledgling days to its current global success.
The book can contribute to readers’ comprehension of entrepreneurial development as being more complex than is suggested by the simplified success stories.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Ben Horowitz’s book on how to make it through the difficult times.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers is written by Ben Horowitz about hard things that growers may face when building and running a company.
The U.S. Chamber characterizes Horowitz’s method as “first-hand and hands-on” that deals with the problems faced by starting a company.
It might be beneficial for entrepreneurs who wish to look at a lesser known face of starting a company, such as the tougher management and operating choices.
Burn Rate by Andy Dunn | (Kiawah Island)
Andy Dunn’s book, Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind, is his autobiography of building Bonobos and living in a company that is based on a start-up.
It is added to the founder-mindset section on the U.S. Chamber and featured in their discussion of work ethic vs. boundaries and mental health.
The book is a reminder that entrepreneurial success is linked to personal well-being and that personal costs can be associated with entrepreneurial aspirations.
Understanding how to select the appropriate book for your business stage.Understanding the appropriate book for each business stage.
There’s the fact that the best books for an entrepreneur vary from person to person, depending on their present needs.
If someone is about to start a business, he or she could be interested in reading books on experimentation, product development, market verification and starting a business.
A budding entrepreneur with a growing team of employees might prefer to focus on leadership, emotional intelligence, delegation and organizational culture more than anything else.
Financial Complexity May Be A Good Reason For A Founder To Build Up Financial Literacy
For an established enterprise moving into a scaling phase, books on capital allocation, strategy, AI applications, operations management and organizational systems might be helpful.
A person interested in personal growth might opt for personal growth books on habits, decision making, productivity, resilience and mindset.
This is why the U.S. Chamber’s segmentation into startup, growth, scaling and founder mindset is true; different books are meant to cater to different circumstances of entrepreneurship.
As a business owner, how you can foster a reading habit.
It’s hard to find the time to read, when you’re running a business. The U.S. Chamber suggests having a list of recommended books to read, setting aside time for reading and establishing small reading chunks when it is not feasible to read for a longer period of time.
One good idea is to have a list of books you are currently reading, broken up by subject area. Examples of categories can be:
- Startup strategy
- Leadership
- Finance
- Marketing
- Technology
- Productivity
- Personal development
- Entrepreneurial memoirs
Rather than trying to read a lot of books at once, select a topic that deals with a problem that you are faced with, and dedicate yourself to the application of useful ideas you have learned from the book.
MIT also provides a valuable reminder—readers should not take anything on a book as a given or as a correct or applicable example. The aim is to look for concepts that can enhance understanding; and then assess if the concept is applicable in a reader’s situation.
If you’re looking for entrepreneurial books, you can get more value from them by following these steps.
Just because someone reads an article doesn’t mean he or she will be influenced by the ideas.
Reading can be more useful for the entrepreneur if they take notes, identify certain concepts and relate it to the problem in their business and test out ideas that may be applicable to their business.
Thus, an entrepreneur might get some ideas for customer validation, such as a survey to determine if a product development process actually validates customer assumptions. Financial intelligence could be read by the entrepreneur who would then be able to look at the company’s financials and recognize some new metrics.
The goal is to get reading to be reflection and in the case of suitable, practical experimentation.
This is also compatible with MIT’s “learning by doing” and “challenge assumptions” philosophy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should be the best books for entrepreneurs?
There aren’t any tools for entrepreneurs that exist in a single book; each book will have a different group of useful readers. Some of the sources provided include books about startups, leadership, finance and scaling, habits, decision making and entrepreneurial experience, such as The Lean Startup, Think Again, Financial Intelligence, Atomic Habits and Shoe Dog.
What books would be helpful to someone who is just beginning to start a business?
Some of the U.S. Chamber’s recommendations for the startup-stage are Build the Damn Thing, Million Dollar Weekend, The Greater Good, The Lean Startup, and 48-Hour Start-up.
Business-related books are valuable to entrepreneurs, but what about those that aren’t?
Yes. That’s why books outside of the world of entrepreneurship have been singled out by the Martin Trust Center at MIT, where they feature books like Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, Antifragile, The Biggest Bluff, and Think Again, which are worthy of reading for their entrepreneurial wisdom.
Which books can help entrepreneurs to grow their skills in being a leader?
Dare to Lead, Primal Leadership and Move Fast and Fix Things are among the recommendations for entrepreneurs and business leaders facing growth and leadership issues that the U.S. Chamber offers.
With the busy schedules of entrepreneurs, how can they find time to read?
The U.S. Chamber suggests having a list of books to read, setting aside time to read and having shorter blocks of reading if there’s a lot going on.
Conclusion
Entrepreneurs’ best books discuss much more than traditional start-up advice. These sources cover book topics on starting companies, selling ideas, finance basics and more, growing organizations, creating habits, dealing with uncertainty and learning from entrepreneurs. The recommendations made by the MIT Martin Trust Center also illustrate why there is value in reading beyond the business category and the U.S. Chamber’s list of readings is expanded to present reading for various stages and needs.
Instead of having to read all of the books recommended, the entrepreneur can select those that cover specific challenges that he/she is currently facing and then use the ideas in the books to real life scenarios. An intentional reading culture can be a vehicle for new frameworks, questions, perspectives and experiments to enhance professional and entrepreneurial development.
Thomas Brooks has an extensive background of over 15 years leading innovation at the enterprise software broadband, cloud infrastructure and emerging technology nexus as a seasoned technology strategist, systems architect and technical writer. Thomas has been recognized for his ability to translate high-level business strategies into practical and scalable implementations in the system space from agile, venture-backed startups to Fortune 500 companies.
