I read 32 books on leadership, marketing, and startups in 2017. Here are the ones you should read (and those you shouldn’t).

In December 2016, the startup I co-founded had 5 employees, and I was only a few months removed from quitting my first full-time job to launch a tech company. What I lacked in experience, however, I made up for in crippling self-doubt, which meant that I (rightfully) felt woefully under-prepared to grow a business from idea to living thing with living customers that paid enough cash to make a living (hint: we’re still not there yet).

I turned to business books, primarily, to help me overcome this, and since this time last year I’ve spent most of my free time studying those who have been successful, and learning as much as I could about leadership, marketing, and growing a business from the best of the best (who have written a book). Some were hugely helpful, and my startup now has their fingerprints all over them. Others were a waste of time and money, and I want to make sure others don’t fall for a fancy cover page and overly positive endorsement on the back like I did. Here’s my take on the 32 business books I read in 2017, organized by topic:

Note: my Co-Founder @leightonhealey has a great saying “Asking someone to name their favourite book is like asking a doctor to name his favourite medicine — it all depends on the situation you’re in.” This article is written through my lens, which is an inexperienced entrepreneur charged with a) leading other people, and b) growing a massive audience, for the first time. What was helpful/not helpful for me may not be the same for you.

TL;DR — I listed my Top 5 books of 2017 at the bottom, if you’re the type that works smarter, not harder.

Leadership/Self-Leadership

Must-Read:

• Radical Candor — Kim Scott: For the first time this year, I was tasked with managing paid employees. I am not naturally assertive, but recognized that protecting other’s feelings at the expense of vocalizing my opinions could kill our startup before it got off the ground. In her book, Kim Scott highlights a super-simple formula for avoiding being an asshole, or “ruinously empathetic”. For first-time leaders like myself, it was hugely beneficial, and I can’t recommend it enough to others.
• 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership — John Maxwell: In the early days of a business, buy-in is absolutely essential among everyone on the team. I knew we would be asking for some long nights and weekends from our team, and I wanted to be the type of person that inspires staff to go the extra mile, as opposed to demanding it. This book was thorough, to-the-point, and helped me distinguish the difference between being a leader and being a manager.
• Decisive — Chip & Dan Heath: I tend to over-think decisions, but not until after I’ve made them. Decisiveness is key when building a business from scratch, but it has to be influenced by forethought, research, and strategy. The Heath Bros came up with a simple framework for analyzing decisions in this book and have helped my decision-making skills stay expedient, but also more carefully thought-out.
• Daring Greatly — Brene Brown: This falls in the self-leadership category, but is equally impactful in regards to how it affects one’s ability to lead a company. Brene Brown has been researching shame and vulnerability for over a decade, and how it impacts every aspect of our lives, from business, to friendships and marriage. As someone who aspires to be in the seemingly elusive “built a successful business and also kept a marriage in tact” club, this book helped me understand how being more vulnerable with my wife, and team, could actually improve both.
• Everybody Communicates; Few Connect — John Maxwell: Starting a business is all about selling: to customers, investors, employees, and your spouse when you have to explain why you’re working on Saturday. John Maxwell showcases how to go beyond telling, to instead listen and empathize, and form bonds with those you come in contact with. Whether it’s 1-on-1, or speaking in front of hundreds, this book was hugely helpful in getting out of my own head, and instead putting myself in the shoes of my audience.

Don’t Read:

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck — Mark Manson: I had this book recommended to me by multiple people, so I was surprised it was such a let-down. It’s little more than an edgy self-help book that could have been summed up in a blog post. It’s full of tropes, lambasting “participation trophies” and outrage culture, with a thesis that doesn’t go far beyond “stop worrying about what other people think”. Add to this the author’s lack of any real credentials, and it seemed more like bad advice your frat bro would give after a few beers than something you should pay time/money for.

Only Read If…

• Winning — Jack Welch: This book seemed helpful, but not in my circumstances. The responsibilities of an entrepreneur still determining if her idea is viable as a business is remarkably different than one of a manager or business leader running a giant firm. Jack’s perspective on candor and differentiation were helpful, but entire chapters covering mergers & acquisitions or Six Sigma were largely irrelevant. This book is probably better suited for a manager in an established organization than a rookie entrepreneur.
• Start With Why — Simon Sinek: Critiquing this book feels like critiquing Seinfeld, given its cultural impact, and I don’t actually disagree with anything Sinek says. The problem, for me, is that entrepreneurs in my age group (i.e. damn millenials) have never had a problem with grandiose visions of the future, or the “why”. Most aspiring entrepreneurs I’ve met have a perfectly clear vision of why they’d want to start a company, they just have no idea “how”. As a result, I found myself saying “Amen!” often while reading this book, but not walking away any closer to actually building the business I was getting more and more excited about. As with Winning, this book seems best suited for a business already-in-motion that needs to course correct, as opposed to a young founder trying to establish her or her footing.

Marketing/Growth

Must-Read:

• Traction: How Any Startup Can Receive Explosive Customer Growth — Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares: Few books make as crystal-clear how any startup can acquire customers as Traction does. Too many entrepreneurs have waited until launch day to begin the process of growing a customer base, and often it’s too little, too late. Traction is methodical, direct, and gives practical advice on how to find the ‘user acquisition sweet-spot’ in any business, regardless of industry.
• Hacking Growth — Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown: Sean Ellis is one of the best growth hackers in Silicon Valley, and while I was expecting a few outside-the-box marketing ideas when I bought this book, what I got instead was a comprehensive methodology for experimenting, iterating, and growing any business. The week I finished this book, we bought 4 more copies for the rest of our senior team, and immediately launched a weekly growth-hacking meeting. The most powerful takeaway from Hacking Growth is, after reading it, you feel like like there are no more unsolvable problems in your business. Whether you can’t attract customers, or can’t convert free users to paid, Hacking Growth lays out the tools to tackle any challenge more efficiently than ever before.
• The Content Trap — Bharat Anand: If the above two books are practical, how-to guides, this book falls on the strategic side, and is arguably even more important. Bharat is a strategy professor at Harvard, and has studied the rise & decline of media properties in the internet age. Bharat’s perspective is remarkably counter-cultural to social media’s insatiable appetite for more content, but all of it is backed up by years of research. If you follow the prevailing advice online marketers give (“you need more content with better SEO!”), you’re going to be led astray. Save yourself the heartache and diminishing returns, and invest into The Content Trap instead.
• Trust Me, I’m Lying — Ryan Holiday: Ooof, this book was a rude awakening when it came out in 2012, and has only proven more so since. Ryan manipulated the media for years as Director of Marketing for American Apparel, and has used his tactics to provide massive coverage for people like Tucker Max and Tim Ferris. In this book, he discloses how exactly he exploited different online blogs’ business models to score free publicity, as well as the downsides (both for himself, and for society) of doing so. This book pairs nicely with an internal code of ethics, but is a must-read either way.
• Contagious — Jonah Berger: This book is also mandatory reading for any marketer. Jonah has spent years researching why ideas, stories, and content go viral, and has boiled it down into six easy principles. With tons of modern-day examples, Jonah details how, with little budget, you can package your message with the right ingredients to spread like wildfire.
• Made to Stick — Chip & Dan Heath: Hand-in-hand with Contagious, Made to Stick is a powerful guide to crafting a message that resonates. For every entrepreneur on the creative side, creating a message that resonates with customers, investors, and employees is hugely challenging, and usually only comes after thousands of wasted marketing dollars. Unsurprisingly, the Heath Bros take their own medicine, and the result is a book that is simple, actionable, and helpful to any founder or marketer who plays a role in communicating their brand’s story.

Don’t Read:

• Growth Hacker’s Guide to the Galaxy — Jeff Goldenberg & Mark Hayes: Outside of the title, this book has barely anything to do with growth hacking. The book is filled with genius “growth hacks” such as “how to start a Shopify store” and “use AirBnB when travelling to save some money”. This book wastes both time and money, two resources in short supply by almost every entrepreneur.
• Free Prize Inside! — Seth Godin: I am the only person I’ve met who is not on the Seth Godin hype-train, so maybe the issue is me. Either way, Free Prize Inside promises tactics for finding the “inner remarkability” of your product or service, but instead dedicates most of its time teaching you how to create buy-in among senior staff in your organization — wait, what? The book feels more like a bait and switch, and was incredibly unhelpful for those among small teams (i.e. most startups) who are looking to catalyze their marketing efforts.
• The Art of Social Media — Guy Kawasaki & Peg Fitzpatrick: Filled with granular tips on optimizing social media, I have two main issues with this book: a) it’s aged horribly, with extensive sections on how vital Google+ is to growing your presence online, and b) for a book dedicated to social media “power users”, it’s mostly filled with advice only beginners would find helpful, such as using Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule your posts.

Only Read If…

• Invisible Influence — Jonah Berger: I’m a big fan of Jonah’s work, but for a startup founder looking to better understand the human mind, and what motivates people to do some things and not others, Invisible Influence was less tangibly helpful than Contagious. More than a few times I found myself saying “Oh, neat!” when reading Invisible Influence, but not walking away with actionable steps I could take, outside of “try to increase familiarity, yet feel distinct”. Interesting for those fascinated by human psychology, but less relevant to the early-stage marketer than Contagious.
• Growth Hacker Marketing — Ryan Holiday: This book was actually my first introduction to the world of growth hacking, which seems to have been its purpose. It’s not meant to be comprehensive, but instead serve as a “beginner’s guide” to the opportunities growth hacking affords creative entrepreneurs/marketers, with a few case studies to illustrate its points. If you are already familiar with growth hacking, then skip this book, but if you want to get your feet wet before purchasing some of the books mentioned above, I’d recommend it.
• Permission Marketing — Seth Godin: I imagine this book was quite disruptive when it came out in 1999, and maybe for that reason, the advice it gives feels obvious in 2017. For beginner marketers, Permission Marketing details how to lead with value in order to get consumers to willingly subscribe to updates/news from you (you know, how Twitter and Facebook work), but for those who have created a Facebook fan page or e-mail list before, this book does little more than serve as a reminder to keep up business as usual.
• This I Know: Marketing Lessons from Under the Influence — Terry O’Reilly: Terry O’Reilly is a bit of a marketing legend up in Canada, and played a significant role in piquing my interest in the subject. His book is meant to help small businesses tackle some big marketing questions, and he does this mostly well. However, a few chapters seem to be geared more towards agencies than startups or small businesses. Overall, this book is still helpful for startups solving macro-level marketing problems, but some chapters are far more relevant than others.

General Business

Must-Read:

• The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook & Google — Scott Galloway: Scott Galloway is a Professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, and has spent probably too much time studying the tech titans of the 21st century: Amazon, Apple, Facebook & Google. The result is a remarkable fluency in what led to their success, the “moats” they’ve built around their businesses, and what the future holds for these companies. Every tech entrepreneur, drunk on their own Kool-Aid, who thinks their startup will be The Fifth would be well-served to study The Four like a textbook.
• Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World — Adam Grant: Originals is filled with surprising research on everything from why procrastination is actually a positive quality, to the correlation between birth order and a baseball player’s likelihood to steal third base. Adam combines his research with others to challenge assumptions on a wide variety of business ideas, and ties it all together with action items to implement his findings into your day-to-day work at the end.
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future — Peter Thiel: I was skeptical of this book because of Peter Thiel’s reputation as a bit of an odd-ball, and his politics. Yet, I found Zero to One oddly refreshing in how bold it was, chastising most startups’ tendency to create incremental improvements, instead of shooting to truly disrupt an industry. It serves as a call-to-arms to entrepreneurs to settle for nothing less than massive success. I was foolish to think that just because I didn’t agree with Peter Thiel’s politics I didn’t have anything to learn from him, and I’m glad that I didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater in this case.
• Startup Opportunities — Brad Feld & Sean Wise: Brad Feld is a well-known Venture Capitalist and Co-Founder of Tech Stars, the business accelerator based out Colorado. Startup Opportunities feels pretty “inside baseball”, but for good reason — it’s supposed to help aspiring tech entrepreneurs vet their idea, and figure out if they can turn it into an actual business or not. Especially if you’re in the “hoarding as much knowledge as possible before I launch” phase, Startup Opportunities helps you assess your idea’s merits, find product/market fit, and raise money for your startup.

Only Read If…

• How Google Works — Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg: For a book from such accomplished authors, I was surprised that, at this point, very little felt new or surprising. Possibly because Google’s story has been told so well, most of the points in the book, such as creating an innovative company culture, or allowing confrontation and disagreement in order to breed a better end result, felt like good reminders, as opposed to new ideas. How Google Works seems far better suited for an established organization facing a mid-life crisis, than a rising tech startup, who will probably have many of the elements suggested already baked into its DNA.
• Venture Deals — Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson: Starting a tech company (especially in a city without a predominant tech scene) feels like being dropped into the 5th inning of a baseball game: you’re still learning the rules of the game, while trying to compete! Venture Deals was especially helpful in understanding the ridiculously murky world of venture financing, and all of the odd definitions & clauses that come along with it. Admittedly, it won’t be relevant to most entrepreneurs, but if you have external financing on the horizon and feel unequipped to even have a conversation about it, Venture Deals is a great starting point.
• Executive Presence — Sylvia Ann Hewlett: I, frankly, was not a good candidate to read this book. The author, a lower-class Welsh woman, tells of her struggle to fit in in the business world, and how she was able to learn about creating and exuding Executive Presence in the workplace, and rise the ranks as a result. I’m lanky and awkward, and don’t naturally exude “Executive Presence”, but I’m also a tall, white male, which has given me an enormous leg up in fitting in, and at least getting a seat at the table. There were a few helpful points, but definitely this book is better suited for women and visible minorities, whether in the startup or corporate space.

Biographies

Must Read:

• Shoe Dog — Phil Knight: I try to read a few biographies every year (great for audiobooks), and for a new entrepreneur, Shoe Dog is remarkably helpful. It details the massive struggle Nike faced over its first 20 years, going from re-selling Japanese shoes to growing its own brand in the US and beyond, while being cash strapped the entire time. The book is massive, yet somehow feels cut-off abruptly by ending at their 1982 IPO. Either way, knowing that a company as big as Nike suffered through such a tumultuous early-stage should be reassuring to other entrepreneurs hoping to re-create their success.
• Elon Musk: Inventing the Future — Ashlee Vance: I’m pretty late to the party on this one, so I won’t spend much time on it. I thought there were sections of this book that were far too granular on the struggles SpaceX and Tesla were facing at certain periods of time, but Elon Musk’s resolve and determination shine through brightly because of it; qualities most young entrepreneurs (like myself) need to familiarize ourselves with.

Don’t Read:

• Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley — Antonio Martinez: Most tech startups outside of Silicon Valley hold it on a pedestal, treating it as a tech entrepreneur’s mecca. Antonio Martinez shatters that myth, which is why I was intrigued by this book. Unfortunately, his autobiography documenting his startup’s acquisition by Twitter, and then his subsequent time as an employee at Facebook, comes across more like a page from the Burn Book in Mean Girls than anything substantial. Plus, I have an aversion to people who soak in career success while neglecting their family, which he seems to do unabashedly towards his ex-wife and two daughters.

Only Read If…

• Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built —Duncan Clark: While I was well-rehearsed with the origin stories of most of North America’s biggest tech companies, I wish I knew more about Alibaba and TenCent. Clark Duncan does a great job providing a high-level overview of Jack Ma’s early career, the partnerships he struck to help Alibaba become what it is today, and just how much of a powerhouse Alibaba is in China. Especially for those largely unfamiliar with the company, this book is a great intro and insight into Jack Ma’s character and personality.

My Top 5 Books of 2017

Yikes, this article was way longer than I anticipated when I first decided to write this. If you’re the type of entrepreneur who works smarter, not harder, and decided to skip right to the end, here are the five best books I read this year:

1. Radical Candor — Kim Scott
2. Hacking Growth — Sean Ellis
3. The Content Trap — Bharat Anand
4. The Four — Scott Galloway
5. Zero to One — Peter Thiel

Onto 2018…

I’m setting the ambitious goal of tackling 40 books this year, a few at the top of my list include: Principles — Ray Dalio, Betaball — Erik Malinowski, Crossing The Chasm — Geoffrey Moore, and more. Any recommendations? Let me know! You can comment below (I think, I haven’t used Medium before), or find me on twitter at @travisparkerm.