The Early Stage Founder’s Reading List

Our TVP Founders tell us there are so many lessons in entrepreneurship, and they’re continuously learning as they build. They gain insights from board members, advisers, and other entrepreneurs, and find that a good book or whitepaper always helps. In the spirit of sharing lessons with early-stage founders, we reviewed some of the best books on management, leadership, and entrepreneurship to offer our take on The Early Stage Founder’s Reading List. While this list is by no means comprehensive (we saved some titles for the next update), it is a good place to start putting yourself into the mindset of an entrepreneur.

1. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston
2. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins
3. Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life by Nir Eyal
4. Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t by Simon Sinek
5. Onward: How Starbucks Fought For Its Life Without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz
6. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
7. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
8. The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup by Noam Wasserman
9. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
10. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries