10+1 Books You Must Read Before Launching Your First Startup

Media is obsessed with startups; every day we hear about charismatic entrepreneurs, revolutionary technologies and fantastic unicorns backed by super-smart and bold VC-s. Yet, in reality, the startup ecosystem is tiny. In 2017, various US investment funds had over $38 Trln. worth of assets under their management, but only $359 Bln. (less than 1%) belonged to venture funds. Similarly, there were over 28 Mln. active businesses in the US in 2017, but only about 400 of them had venture exits. Tech startups, such as Uber, simply receive disproportionally high attention from journalists and bloggers, which often makes us forget that more than 99% of the economy still consists of traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, and what is happening in venture industry is a unique and unusual phenomenon. The dynamics of venture economy is radically different from the remaining 99% of the business world, and the “rules of the game” of startup industry often contradict those of traditional economy; you need to know these rules very well to play the startup game right.

In addition to the fact that the rules of the startup world are unique, they are also changing fast. Since 2009, I have been occasionally teaching international entrepreneurs on how to launch a startup in Silicon Valley (or to relocate an existing one here). Starting off as a small 4-hour…