One takeaway from the books I read in 2016
I always have three things in my backpack: my computer, a book, and a notebook. Sometimes the computer will be left out, but there is never a book without a notebook or a notebook without a book.
I’ve taken notes from every book that I have read, and after finishing the book I write one takeaway that book has left me. I do this with the purpose of eventually going back and seeing what my life was like in that moment, and trying to understand why I was left with that takeaway.
In 2016 I read 20 books, and below are some notable lines that I highlighted from them:
1. Building Social Business
“The aim of a social business is to solve a problem, not to create new problems with his business methods.” — Muhammad Yunus, Building Social Business
2. Built to Last
“Visionary companies are focused on beating themselves rather than competitors.” — Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last
3. Contagious: Why Things Catch On
“Products are like stories. If it is not a good story, people won’t talk about it.” — Jonah Berger, Contagious: Why Things Catch On
4. Delivering Happiness
“Take much of the money from advertising and invest into customer services. Let the customer do the marketing.” — Tay Hsieh, Delivering Happiness
5. Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing
“We sometimes treat abundant things as if it were scarce, and the scarce things as it were abundant, like time.” — Chris Anderson, Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing
6. How I Lost $170 Million Dollars
“Every person in the team not only used the product, they were in love with it.” — noah kagan, How I Lost $170 Million Dollars
7. Let My People Go Surfing
“Make the best product. Without a tangible, high-quality product there would obviously be no business and other goals.” — Yvon Chouinard, Let My People Go Surfing (patagonia)
8. Mission in a Bottle
“Until you’ve got the business figured out, more money just means costly mistakes.” — Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff, Mission in a Bottle
9. Outliers
“Success = Practice. An opportunity is how much practice you can take.” — Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers
10. The Thank You Economy
“Care first, not sale first.” Gary Vaynerchuk, The Thank You Economy
11. Rework
“Start a business, not a startup.” — Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Rework
12. Spin Selling
“Selling is about helping. It’s all about long-term relationship.” — Neil Rackham, Spin Selling
13. Start Something That Matters
“Kaisen: A Japanese concept. Small improvements made every day will lead to massive improvements overall.” — Blake Mycoskie, Start Something That Matters
14. Start with Why
“It is vital to know why your customers are your customers.” — Simon Sinek, Start with Why
15. Venture Deals
“It’s all about the length of the milestone that determines the amount looking.” — Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson, Venture Deals
16. Startup CEO
“Lose a sale to competition and you will recover. Lose your soul to competition and you are done.” — Matt Blumberg, Startup CEO
17. The 4-Hour Workweek
“If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.” — Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek
18. The Hard Thing About Hard Things
“Take care of people, products, and profits. In that order.” — Ben Horowitz, The Hard Thing About Hard Things
19. The Lean Startup
“In today’s world there is too much waste. So the question is not “can we build it?” but “Should we build it?” — Eric Ries, The Lean Startup
20. Zero to One
“Focus on product, not sales. If you need a sales and a marketing team early on, your product doesn’t work.” — Peter Thiel, Zero to One
If you are interested in reading all the notes, check them here : )
DoGoodFirst is a journey on how to build businesses that make the world a better place. Nothing is written in stone, and we know we are far away to making it fully right, but we are prepared to take the journey.
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