13 books to read instead of doing an MBA
To do an MBA, or not to do an MBA? This question has never been less clear for somebody aiming to launch their business career. Going back 20 years, it was the clear definitive method. In today’s digital world, where all information is a mere click away, is it really necessary?
I won’t claim to know the answer to that question, but instead I have gathered all of the most important business books to read, so that you can already start learning, and maybe you’ll find the answer along the way.
The Personal MBA
Master the Art of Business
by Josh Kaufman
Why read?
True leaders aren’t made by business schools-they make themselves, seeking out the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to succeed.
The author Josh Kaufman has made a business out of distilling the core principles of business and delivering them quickly and concisely to people at all stages of their careers. His blog has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to the best business books and most powerful business concepts of all time. In The Personal MBA, he shares the essentials of sales, marketing, negotiation, strategy, and much more.
464 pages, Portfolio 2012
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The Visual MBA
A Quick Guide to Everything You’ll Learn in Two Years of Business School
by Jason Baron
Why read?
The author Jason Baron completed an MBA, but rather than simply taking notes in class, Jason did something slightly different. He captured his notes in visual format, with the intention of sharing them with the world.
In the book The Visual MBA, you can browse through his full set of notes taken during his MBA at BYU Marriott School of Business to gain a sample of all the things that is taught in a traditional MBA class.
208 pages, Portfolio Penguin 2019
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The Lean Startup
How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
by Eric Ries
Why read?
If you haven’t heard of this one yet, then you may have been living under a rock for some time, but that’s fine — now you know which book to order next.
The Lean Startup approach, shared in this book, fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning”, rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product-development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is an approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
336 pages, Currency 2011
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Pitch Anything
An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal
by Oren Klaff
Why read?
Whether you’re selling ideas to investors, pitching a client for new business, or even negotiating for a higher salary, Pitch Anything will transform the way you position your ideas.
According to the author Oren Klaff, creating and presenting a great pitch isn’t an art — it’s a simple science. Applying the latest findings in the field of neuroeconomics, while sharing eye-opening stories of his method in action, Klaff describes how the brain makes decisions and responds to pitches. With this information, you’ll remain in complete control of every stage of the pitch process.
225 pages, McGraw-Hill Education 2011
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Permission Marketing
by Seth Godin
Why read?
Seth Godin, the God of marketing, teaches some fundamental lessons for marketing in the modern era.
Traditional advertising is based on the hope of snatching our attention away from whatever we are doing. We all know the annoying TV commercials and the pop up banners. Seth Godin calls this Interruption Marketing, and, as companies are discovering, it no longer works.
256 pages, Pocket Books 2007
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All Marketers are Liars
The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works — and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All
by Seth Godin
Why read?
Great marketers don’t talk about features or even benefits. Instead, they tell a story — a story we want to believe, whether it’s factual or not. In a world where most people have an infinite number of choices and no time to make them, every organization is a marketer, and all marketing is about telling stories.
And if they do it right, we believe them.
Another Seth Godin book in this collection, because, as I mentioned: he’s the marketing God.
240 pages, Portfolio 2012
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Growth Hacker Marketing
A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing and Advertising
by Ryan Holiday
Why read?
How do you grow your startup with zero marketing budget? How do you create a buzz, and attract your first customers, without any money to spend?
Some of the biggest tech companies don’t spend a dime on traditional marketing. No press releases, no TV commercials, no billboards. Instead, they rely on growth hacking to reach many more people, despite modest marketing budgets.
In Growth Hacker Marketing, Ryan Holiday shares his experience, teaching you how to harness the power of growth to propel you to success. Featuring insights from leading growth hackers, Growth Hacker Marketing is the essential guide to the revolutionary new approach to growing your business.
142 pages, Profile Books 2014
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Good Strategy / Bad Strategy
The difference and why it matters
by Richard Rumelt
Why read?
Bad strategy is everywhere. We have turned the word itself into no more than a buzz we can’t really trust anymore. Good strategy is simple, insightful and, most of the times, obvious to the individual who takes a step back and analyzes the situation the way it is. Simply stating fluffy words and working hard won’t be enough. It takes critical thinking.
As professor Richard P. Rumelt teaches us in ‘Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters’, good strategy contains diagnosis, a guiding policy and coherent action. Beautifully crafted sentences fail to be executed, blind actions fail to be effective. Many companies don’t even think about having a real roadmap beyond the consecution of specific outputs. They lack clarity, direction and tactics. Good strategy approach is simply the scientific method applied to business. This book is an absolute beast.
336 pages, Currency 2011
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Obviously Awesome
How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It
by April Dunford
Why read?
Talking about positioning sounds soooooo 90’s, but this doesn’t mean it’s less important today than it was back then. There’s a lot of confusion around the term. Isn’t positioning a product all about being there in the perfect moment at the perfect time? Short answer: no.
April Dunford in her Obviously Awesome shows us that what we need is to follow a 10 step process and put the outcomes of this into practice in order to achieve a suitable product-market fit. On her website you can also find a handful of templates to help you do that.
204 pages, Ambient Press 2019
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What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School
by Mark McCormack
Why read?
Mark H. McCormack is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in American business, and is widely credited as the founder of the modern-day sports marketing industry. Over forty years ago, Mark McCormack started International Management Group with partner Arnold Palmer, and has now grown it into a global multimillion-dollar enterprise.
First published over thirty years ago, this business classic remains a must-read for executives and managers at every level. Relating his proven method of “applied people sense” in key chapters on sales, negotiation, reading others and yourself, and executive time management, McCormack presents powerful real-world guidance on business.
257 pages, Bantam 2016
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Loonshots
How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries
by Safi Bahcall
Why read?
In Loonshots, physicist and entrepreneur Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs.
Drawing on the science of phase transitions, Bahcall shows why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them.
Loonshots identifies the small shifts in team and company structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.
368 pages, St Martin’s Press 2019
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Business Model Generation
A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
by Alexander Osterwalder
Why read?
Business Model Generation is a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow’s enterprises.
This book was co-created by 470 professionals in 45 countries, to bring you a delightfully visual book to help you build your new business model, or break the holds of your old one.
288 pages, Wiley 2010
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Meaningful
The Story of Ideas That Fly
by Bernadette Jiwa
Why read?
We don’t change the world by starting with our brilliant ideas, our dreams; we change the world by helping others to live their dreams. The story of ideas that fly is the story of the people who embrace them, love them, adopt them, care about them and share them. Successful ideas are the ones that become meaningful to others — helping them to see what’s possible for them.
After years of consulting with hundreds of innovators, creatives, entrepreneurs and business leaders to help them tell the stories of their ideas, author Bernadette Jiwa discovered something: every business that flies starts not with the best idea, the biggest budget or better marketing, but with the story of someone who wants to do something — and can’t.
176 pages, Perceptive Press 2015
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