Reading List for Entrepreneurs

This may be the most valuable post I write. And while I can’t claim this list is sufficient, it certainly is necessary. If you haven’t read everything on this list, get on it.

• Product / Market Fit
  • The most important thing and a really well written article – ALL startups should follow this: Product / Market Fit
• Go To Market Strategy for Startups 
• This is like “Four Steps” (below) but shorter (and written by me – so it’s awesome).
• Part 1 – Market Phase Model, Part 2 – Market Exploration, Part 3 – Market Investigation
• Four Steps to the Epiphany
  • PDF Intro – I think you can get most of the benefit from this first chapter.
  • Full book – I, quite frankly, never made it through the entire book. For some reason I didn’t like it that much and felt most of the benefit was in the intro. But perhaps I’m missing something. http://amzn.to/1m4R1S
• Crossing the Chasm
  • This is THE bible of high tech marketing. Steven Blank of Four Steps would say this is mostly irrelevant since this only comes after customer discovery, but I think he’s non-trivially wrong. This is the book. http://amzn.to/9YPB3n
• The Innovator’s Dilemma
  • This is right after Crossing the Chasm with respect to marketing strategy books. Love it. http://amzn.to/ahEhhN
• The Sales Learning Curve
  • HBS article. Very good article on how to think about sales. Genesis of the concept of the Renaissance Rep. Link.
  • Obviously this isn’t essential if you are building a online-only or consumer startup.

Note – Crossing the Chasm and The Innovator’s Dilemma are two-thirds of the holy trinity of high tech strategy books. I’m still looking for the third.