13 Entrepreneurial Books You Must Read

Walt Disney once said, “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island”. This shows how vital and essential reading is.

Reading is essential if you want to be successful in business. It will expose you to new ideas and modes of thinking and will broaden your knowledge base.

No matter the business you are in or which aspect of life you find yourself in, the knowledge you glean from books will be a bedrock to sustain you through trials and failures.

Having elucidated on the importance of books, I’ll be listing 13 books that are highly recommended for any entrepreneur.

1. THE HARD THING ABOUT HARD THINGS – BEN HOROWITZ

There are many things that school doesn’t teach us, and Ben Horowitz wants those things to be out in the open for entrepreneurs.

This book gives advice on how to build and run a startup in the real world.

2. TRACTION – GABRIEL WEINBERG AND JUSTIN MARES

In this book, Gabriel and Justin draw from their own experiences building and selling multi-million dollar companies to teach other entrepreneurs how to find and focus on the right growth levers that’ll scale their businesses quickly.

3. INFLUENCE (THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSUASION) – ROBERT B. CIALDINI

This is a classic book for marketers and people looking to build or improve their marketing skills.

Influence discusses how you can use the power of persuasion to influence how other people react.

4. ZERO TO ONE – PETER THIEL

This business book takes a close look at the power of innovation. The key to progress, according to Thiel, is learning to think for yourself. When you do something new, you are moving from 0 to 1.

In this business book, he lays out how to train yourself to be an innovator.

5. GROWTH HACKER MARKETING – RYAN HOLIDAY

Growth hackers have thrown out the old playbook and replaced it with tools that are testable, trackable, and scalable. They believe that products and businesses should be modified repeatedly until they’re primed to generate explosive reactions.

Growth Hacker Marketing is the go-to playbook for any company or entrepreneur looking to build and grow.

6. THE DESIGN OF EVERYDAY THINGS – DON NORMAN

This book shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints.

The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how and why some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.

7. HOOKED: HOW TO BUILD HABIT-FORMING PRODUCTS – NIR EYAL

In this book, Eyal takes a look at why some companies and individuals are able to consistently create products that take off from day one and capture the public’s imagination, while others launch new products to the sound of crickets.

Eyal explains what he calls The Hook Model, which is a four-step process that successful companies follow when creating products that subtly encourage consumers to behave in a desirable manner for the company.

8. THE LEAN PRODUCT PLAYBOOK – DAN OLSEN

This is a practical guide to building products that customers love. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice.

If you are interested in Lean Startup principles and want to apply them to develop winning products, this book is for you. 

9. GRIT – ANGELA DUCKWORTH

In this book, Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed, be it parents, students, educators, athletes, or business people, that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit”.

Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that, not talent or luck, makes all the difference.

10. THE LEAN STARTUP – ERIC RIES

In this book, Eric looks at why most startups fail, and how those failures can be avoided.

His approach builds companies that are both more efficient and leverage human creativity more effectively.

11. THE ACCIDENTAL STARTUP – DANIELLE BABB

With unemployment rates rising, many people are out of work and many more are either underemployed or in fear of losing their jobs. Many of these workers have long thought of owning their own businesses and are pondering whether self-employment is the right choice.

This book will help them make the call, and go about the process of starting and running their own businesses.

12. PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL – DAN ARIELY

In this book, Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate.

Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They’re systematic and predictable, making us predictably irrational.

13. SMALL BUSINESS BIG MONEY – AKIN ALABI

Are you planning to start a business? Do you have a small business but you are not making enough money to cover your bills and live the kind of life you want?

If you answered YES to any of those questions, this is the most important book you will ever read.

That’s it, 13 great entrepreneurial books which you need to read. There are many more great books apart from these, but we can’t list all of them.

I’ll conclude this article with this quote from Napoléon Bonaparte:

“Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world”.