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Good Books for Entrepreneurs
Sometimes, you just want to get away from net and spend
some time in the books. If you are interested in the books, cool avenues
brings you a article on books review. This will provide you insights and
reviews of the hottest books available.
We are not recommending books like "How to win.." and
"Ten Best Ways to Revolutionise Business". We are talking about good, smart
people who write awfully good books.. Here's a brief sampling. Click
on any of the section below to reach a section:
Venture Capital
Startups
Computers and Software
Technology and Society
General Business
Marketing
Some of you might be interested in a personal booklist.
Finally, if you haven't kicked back and read a good novel lately, perhaps
you should read Huckleberry Finn... there's probably more pure spirit of
entrepreneurism in there than in the last six issues of Harvard Business
Review!
Financing your Business with Venture Capital,
by Frederick Lipman.
A good overview of the mechanics of accepting an outside
equity investment in your company, with the depth and breadth you'd expect
from by an experienced attorney. In addition to venture capital, Lipman
talks about angels, private placements, and more. What are the tradeoffs,
and what should you watch out for? Includes sample term sheets.
Venture Capital Investing
by David Gladstone.
An interesting look from the investment side of the table...
how do you analyze an investment in a private company where market value
is whatever the market will bear? Good insights for entrepreneurs--how
is your investor planning to make money, and what can you do to convince
him that you're the ticket?
Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics
by P.J. O'Rourke.
Okay, strictly speaking, it's not about venture capital.
But you should buy it, anyhow! The economic principles are universal. Not
to mention that, like anything by O'Rourke, it's one of the funniest books
you'll read all year.
Venture Capital Handbook
by David J. Gladstone.
This book discusses every issue facing the entrepreneur
when he/she considers obtaining VC funding. With practical real world knowledge
and easy to follow concepts this book is one of the most used VC references
in use today.
StrikingItRich.com : Profiles of 23 Incredibly
Successful Websites You've Probably Never Heard Of.
Just goes to show you can't judge a book by its cover!
This is the best book about the Internet and marketing I've found to date.
As well as providing a lot of useful ideas, it is actually a good read.
One key element that simply shines out of the pages of
this book is the fact that the number of visitors to a site does not necessarily
influence its success. A site with 3,000 visitors a month did over $48
million in business in 1997! Other sites with what are, by many standards,
minuscule levels of traffic also produced amazing results, selling out
their entire ad inventory at extraordinary CPM rates for months in advance
simply because the niches they address are attractive and carefully defined.
You can learn a lot by seeing what worked for these sites,
but also by making sure you do not miss the opportunities they did.
The Macintosh Way
by Guy Kawasaki.
Doing the right things, and doing things right. One of
the best accounts of how a high-tech company should be run. You don't have
to be a Macintosh fan to get a lot out of this book.
Crossing the Chasm
by Geoffrey Moore.
A problem that you want to have... what happens when
you expand beyond a highly-technical niche and begin selling to John Q.
Public? Everything about your business changes. If you do some things right
up front, you can lessen the pain later on.
Geoff's other books, Inside the Tornado and The Gorilla
Game are also well worth reading. Everyone uses the terms from these books.
Have you read them?
Start-Up
by Jerry Kaplan.
An insider's look at a high-flying Silicon Valley startup;
from the first inspiration through the heady product introduction bashes
to the auctioning off of the office furniture. Read it as a novel or as
a cautionary tale; lots to chew on either way.
The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest
by Po Bronson.
A different look at the Valley, this time in a hilarious,
thought-provoking, and just plain fun novel by one of the 1990s brightest
satirists. A superb book... and, in my opinion, a great
advertisement as to why entrepreneurs should set up shop
in Atlanta rather than Silicon Valley!
Burn Rate
by Michael Wolff.
An entertaining, sometimes controversial look at life
inside a high-flying Internet startup. Also a reminder of how much the
Internet has really changed -- and has changed us! -- since it burst into
the mainstream in 1994.
Essentials of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management
by Thomas W. Zimmerer, Norman M. Scarborough.
This book offers an abundance of real-world examples,
practical hands-on exercises and activities, and a no-nonsense real-world
approach that follows the logical process and critical issues of creating,
launching, and managing a successful small business.
Beyond Entrepreneurship: Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great
Company
by James C. Collins.
This inspiring work provides entrepreneurs with building
blocks to help their companies sustain high performance, play a leadership
role in their industries, and remain great for generations. Includes plenty
of real-world examples from companies like Nike.
| Books on Computers
and Software |
The Invisible Computer
by Donald A. Norman.
Absolutely everything Don has written is worth reading,
but this book is extraordinary. As the subtitle says, "Why good products
can fail, the personal computer is so complex, and information appliances
are the solution."
Silicon Snake Oil
by Clifford Stoll.
At last, a warning not to take any of the industry's
wilder predictions too seriously. New technologies are always adopted more
slowly than you can imagine at first, then faster than you can imagine
later on. We're mostly in the first part of the curve here. Build a business
that makes sense today, and you can still be in business in 2010. Do it
the other way around, and you're in deep yogurt.
About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design
by Alan Cooper.
Anyone in the software business should read and ponder
this book. Period. It's that good. Cooper gets caught up a little too much
in Windows-centric omphaloskepsis, but there's a lot here that's useful
on any platform more complex than a toaster oven.
| Books on Technology
and Society |
The Future and Its Enemies
by Virginia Postrel.
The good old days weren't all that good, but some people
want to go back to them anyhow. Except that we can't. And trying could
cause more problems than you've probably imagined. Postrel is an unabashed
libertarian, but, no matter what your political views, this book is worth
your time and attention.
Technologies of Freedom
by Ithiel de Sola Pool.
Twelve years old, and parts of it could have been written
last week. A lot of this book is hard slogging, but it foreshadows George
Gilder's more accessible work. Superb summation of how the Information
Revolution both strengthens and undermines the right of free speech that
we take for granted.
What Will Be
by Michael Dertouzos.
A thoughtful look at what electronic commerce and pervasive
computing could mean to our daily lives in the near future. Enough material
in here to fuel a dozen startups!
Forbes Greatest Technology Stories
by Jeffrey Young.
From the post-war invention of the modern computer, right
up through the Internet, some of the "entrepreneurs and inventors who revolutionized
modern business."
The Victorian Internet
by Tom Standage.
"A worldwide communications network... spanned continents
and oceans, revolutionized business practice, gave rise to new forms of
crime, and inundated its users with a deluge of information. Romances blossomed
over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some users and cracked by
others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates
and dismissed by the skeptics. Governments and regulators tried and failed
to control the new medium. Attitudes toward everything from news gathering
to diplomacy had to be completely re-thought. Meanwhile, out on the wires,
a technological subculture with its own custom and vocabulary was establishing
itself." The Internet? No, the telegraph, a century ago. This has all happened
before...
Halfway to Anywhere
by G. Harry Stine.
Personal computers. Biotechnology. Internet companies.
What's the next multi-billion dollar industry? Look up. Way up. In spite
of NASA's assurances that launching payloads into orbit is a natural government
monopoly, there are fortunes to be made by savvy entrepreneurs who focus
on the business issues.
| Books on General
Business |
How to Drive Your Competition Crazy
by Guy Kawasaki.
Guy's newest effort, speaking directly to entrepreneurs
who don't have million-dollar ad budgets or armies of salespeople. Suggestion:
read this book with a pad of paper by your side; do the exercises. They
are worth the time.
From Barbarians to Bureaucrats
by Lawrence Miller.
This is a thoughtful look at the different roles people
can play -- and need to play -- at different points in a company's development.
It's worth pondering if you're starting out as an entrepreneur: if you're
a Prophet, what happens when a Barbarian comes along? Do you chafe, change,
or leave? Hard questions. Good reading.
Leapfrogging the Competition: Five Giant Steps to Becoming a Market
Leader
by Oren Harari, Robert Ulrich
Highly recommended! With insights on global competition,
strategic alliances, and the use of technology this book is a must read.
Also see what Michael Dell and General Colin Powell had to say about this
book.
The Alchemy of Growth: Practical Insights for Building the Enduring
Enterprise
by Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley, David White, Steve Coley
This highly practical, field-tested approach to initiating
and sustaining growth in companies of all sizes is a must read.
Jumping the Curve: Innovation and Strategic Choice in an Age of Transition
by Nicholas Imparato, Oren Harari
Providing strategic tactics for handling change and preparing
for the future, a management guide details the many things that businesses
can learn from past trends, stressing the importance of future-oriented
thinking and customer-driven innovations.
Achieving the Competitive Edge: A Practical Guide to World Class
Competition
by Harry K., Jr. Jackson, Normand L. Frigonby
This accessible guide covers basically everything you
need to know after you have determined your customer base and their needs.
Very useful and easy to read book with lots of information.
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information,
and Visual Explanations
all by Edward R. Tufte.
These books are expensive. Buy them anyhow. If you're
trying to capture an investor's interest during a quick riffle through
your business plan, nothing does it better than clear and intelligent graphics.
Nothing turns him off faster than flashy but stupid graphics. Learn how
to tell the difference. (The money you'll save by not printing your graphs
in color will more than pay for the price of all three books! :-)
The Dilbert Principle and The Dilbert Future
Scott Adams.
Good reminders of why so many people dream of leaving
a large corporation to work for a startup, or for themselves. If your startup
grows large enough to start exhibiting the behavior described in these
books, it's time to leave and start another one!
Beating the Odds in Small Business
by Tom Culley.
A former McKinsey consultant who has been involved in
dozens of startups in the U.S. and Brazil, Culley is a must-read. His hard-headed
advice could save lots of people some very expensive mistakes.
The Business of Consulting: The Basics and Beyond
by Elaine Biech.
The book's title is a bit misleading because it is really
a guide for anyone, not just consultants, trying to start a business on
a tight budget. It includes stuff like "113 cheap-or-free ways to get clients."
Biech has been a self-employed consultant for 20 years - she started her
company in the kitchen of a Wisconsin farmhouse and has since amassed dozens
of big corporate clients plus the U.S. Navy (!) - so she knows what she's
talking about. Terrific. (Includes a computer diskette of standard forms
- invoices, query letters, etc., etc. - that can be used to start a business
or as a model for amending the forms you're already using.)
Rules for Revolutionaries : The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating
and Marketing New Products and Services
by Guy Kawasaki with Michele Moreno.
"Create like a god, command like a king, work like a
slave," exhorts Garage.com CEO Kawasaki in his "capitalist manifesto" on
creating and marketing new enterprises. This quick, energetic read includes
some simple, but effective suggestions for innovating products and generating
big ideas. Be sure to check out the chapter on the "Death Magnets" that
commonly derail startups.
Working Solo
by Terri Lonier.
Lonier is a longtime entrepreneur and counselor to the
self-employed who offers, in these pages, a wealth of practical wisdom.
She also has a Web site, www.workingsolo.com
, that puts out a free monthly E-mail newsletter full of great tips for
business owners on everything from tax-law changes to how to fire somebody.
Marketing on the Internet
by Jill H. & Mathew Ellsworth.
Starting with a solid overview, this guide goes on to
provide the entrepreneur with a detailed discussion of how the Internet
and browser technology work, and lays out techniques and recommended strategies
for creating an Internet marketing plan for your business.
Six Steps to Free Publicity: And Dozens of Other Ways to Win Free
Media Attention for You or Your Business
by Marcia Yudkin.
This Excellent resource shows the easiest, fastest, cheapest
ways to get featured in newspapers, magazines, radio, or TV
Guerrilla PR: How You Can Wage an Effective Publicity Campaign...
Without Going Broke
by Michael Levine.
In clear and concise language, Michael Levine reveals
the procedures he uses every day to get press and how these techniques
can be used on little or no budget for any business or endeavor.
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