The 6 best entrepreneur books you must read | as recommended by 300 + entrepreneurs
Many successful entrepreneurs credit business books as having had a transformative impact on their lives or how they chose to approach a new idea or business problem.
Reading entrepreneur books and learning from the wisdom and experiences of others is both an entertaining and informative way to learn how to start a successful business. But with so many books to choose from it makes sense to focus on the best business books that will have the highest impact to maximise your reading time.
During our exclusive Unfiltered interviews, we asked 300 of the world’s successful entrepreneurs to recommend the best entrepreneur books they have ever read. Based on their answers we came up with a list to of the 6 top business books that were consistently put forward as being highly influential in the lives and success of our interviewees.
Here’s the list (in no particular order) — happy reading!
1. Good to Great, Jim Collins (2001)
Collins examines why some companies make the leap from good to greatness, and why many don’t.
Co-Founder of ZURU, Nick Mowbray, said “By far the best business book I’ve ever read… It analyzes and compares a number of different companies over time and what they find is the same lessons over and over and over again. I think there’s so many powerful lessons in that book that you can apply to any business, and they’re dead on. They’re absolutely bang on in terms of building a really profitable business. For me, that book is for sure number one.”
Watch Nick’s full exclusive interview.
Buy ‘Good to Great’ on Amazon.
2. The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz (2014)
Essential advice on building and running a startup from one of Silicon Valley’s most respected and experienced entrepreneurs.
Jeremy Cai, co-founder of Fountain said: “You know, I really enjoyed ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’, especially the first few chapters and Ben Horowitz’s story about building his first company… I learned a lot from that book.”
Co-founder and CEO at Handy, Oisin Hanrahan, said: “The book that I think about a lot is ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ so we regularly give that out to people, particularly on product or in engineering.”
Watch Jeremy’s full exclusive interview.
Watch Oisin’s full exclusive interview.
Buy ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ on Amazon.
3. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carneige (1936, revised 1981)
One of the best-selling books of all time, this famous self-help book was named on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential books.
Chris Heaslip, CEO and Co-Founder of Pushpay, said: “A book that had a really big shift on my thinking is ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ and the idea that you should be more interested in other people than yourself. It’s very counter-intuitive, especially in today’s culture.”
Keith Krach, Chairman of the Board at DocuSign, said: “I think the first one, for sure, was ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ that’s an oldie but a goodie. I remember reading that back at Purdue. I think there’s so much wise advice… And it’s timeless.”
Watch Chris’ full exclusive interview.
Watch Keith’s full exclusive interview.
Buy ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ on Amazon.
4. The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen (1997)
Examines how innovation occurs and why great companies and established market leaders fail when confronted by disruptive technologies from new or unexpected competitors.
James Joaquin, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Obvious Ventures, said: “I’m a big fan of a Harvard professor named Clayton Christensen. He wrote a book called ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’, and he’s written a series of great books.”
And Matthew Prince, Co-Founder and CEO of Cloudflare, said: “From an idea of being a new entrant to a business and understanding the risks of being a big company, Clayton Christensen’s ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’ is terrific and something everyone should read.”
Watch James’ full exclusive interview.
Watch Matthew’s full exclusive interview.
Buy ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’ on Amazon.
5. Zero to One, Peter Thiel with Blake Masters (2014)
It’s easier to copy an existing model than to make something new. When you create something that’s truly new, you go from zero to one.
Ian Wright, Co-Founder of Tesla, said: “Anyone thinking of starting a company, I’d recommend you read Peter Thiel’s book ‘Zero to One’.”
And Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, said: “‘Zero to One’ by Peter Thiel. It’s not directly about raising capital but the ideas in there are the critical ones to raising capital…. Peter Thiel is, I think, one of the investors I’ve learned the most from.”
Watch Ian’s exclusive full interview.
Watch Sam’s exclusive full interview.
Buy ‘Zero to One’ on Amazon.
6. Losing My Virginity, Richard Branson (1998)
The autobiography of respected businessman Richard Branson. An entertaining and inspiring story following Richard’s unique and at times outrageous journey building the Virgin empire.
CEO of Virgin Galactic, George T Whitesides, said: “I really like, and this is going to sound like a plug but it’s not, I really like Richard’s book, “Losing my Virginity.” Which is a terrific tale of how essentially Virgin Group got started and grew so I think that’s a fantastic book.”
And Co-Founder and Co-CEO of My Food Bag, James Robinson, said: “I really like Richard Branson’s, ‘Losing my Virginity,’ for just an amusing story which is quite real, ups and downs.”
Watch George’s full exclusive interview.
Watch James’ full exclusive interview.
Buy ‘Losing My Virginity’ on Amazon.
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