Brought to you by LinkedIn and PayPal co-founder Reid Hoffman with co-author and instructor Chris Yen, Blitzscaling is a lesson in strategy, tactics, and history of what the authors describe as “blitzscaling”. Blitzscaling is not just “scaling” it is such rapid scaling of a business or endeavor that much risk is taken, many lessons are learned in the process, and that not all market situations are suitable or call for blitzscaling. Learning from recent startup unicorns like AirBnb, Alibaba, Uber, Twitter, Facebook, and others, the authors capture what it takes to blitzscale but also what are the key conditions under which a blitzscaling strategy will be key to quickly dominating a market. I recommend this book for startups, entrepreneurs, but also Industrial Engineers looking for a somewhat technical but more strategic and broad picture of the contrasts between rapid scaling and the pursuits of repeatable, stable processes. I’ve enjoyed the book thoroughly!
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!
This book is a classic of marketing and is recommend often among entrepreneurs and successful CEO’s alike. This book is compact and easily distilled to your particular situation. I found it VERY helpful to understand marketing in general but also as a lesson in organizational change as well. While it might not seem useful internally to an organization, this book is fundamentally about individual and group psychology, choice theory, influence, and customer satisfaction. When viewed from those angles these 22 Laws become VERY useful to a much broader audience. I recommend this book for leaders and managers, marketers, industry and market analysts, entrepreneurs, and startups.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Peter Thiel is more famously known for his part as a founder at PayPal as well as his work as a Venture Capitalist at Thiel Capital but this book is a great resource and insight into his thinking not only about business but history, political science, and his thoughts on the trajectory of history. This book is a collection lectures he gave at Standford on Startups, compiled by a student of his and then collaboratively edited into the final book. This book is probably in many of the Top 10 books for startups and entrepreneurs out there and for good reason. It’s choc full of macro, strategic thinking models as well as integration of fundamental aspects of nature like Power Laws and Network theory. Additionally, he brings into play societal level patterns and paradigms to help the reader understand what true change and earth shattering products, services, and business models really are. He has a straight forward style backed up with a thorough understanding of business, systems theory, economics, political science, and much more. I recommend this book for startups, entrepreneurs, innovators, strategists and more.
Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
Business Model Generation is the third book in a collection of interrelated works (not all the same authors) of Startup Owners Manual and Value Proposition Design, all focused on innovation, business model design and development, the Business (or Organization) Model Canvas, and Value Proposition Design. This book is a deeper dive into examples of a wide variety of business models and a wide ranging exploration of the various ways these companies innovated their products, services, and business models to continuously pursue excellence but also better serve their customers in the end. I recommend this book for essential reading of entrepreneurs and product developers, but also participants in the startup world, organizational effectiveness consultants and leaders, and Innovation focused professionals.
The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company
I’m a huge fan, believer, and engineer focused on systems design and analysis approaches. The Startup Owner’s Manual has been a go to resource for a systems thinking view of building an organization but I also believe improving one as well. The central tool of this method is the “Business Model Canvas” but it can just as easily be translated to “Organization Model Canvas” or even “Teaming Model Canvas” with a few tweaks in verbiage and format. I’ve coupled this tool with strategic analysis tools like SWOT and Market Analysis frameworks. It’s an incredibly rigorous, practical, and proven approach to design, prototype, implement, and improve your business model as you startup, scale, and mature your organization. I believe the canvas can be a central tool for organizational effectiveness consultants, consultants in general, General Managers, and Innovation focused leaders. The processes are clear but also the tools are visual, easily understand by wide audiences, and create a systems (broad and interconnected) view of how your organization meets it’s purpose and value proposition for it’s customers. This is a Top book of mine that I recommend probably the most often.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
Author, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz does a great job in recounting and distilling many tough lessons he learned FIRST HAND as a startup entrepreneur, developer, and manager. The book is told from his first person perspective, historically, of the challenges, dilemmas, and outcomes from his long history in the tech startup world. The questions he faced and poses to the reader will help you to understand these seemingly impossible circumstances, how to navigate through them, communicate to key stakeholders, but also come through the experiences having learned a great deal no matter what. I recommend this book for any entrepreneurs, managers, as well as employees that want to understand more deeply the true life experiences at the top of major companies and that it’s definitely not as easy as many people would think it is.