Category: Startups

Rating: 6.9/10. How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World’s Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs by Guy Raz Book filled with stories about startups, apparently based off a podcast. The book is pretty short and there are a lot of chapters, about 25 chapters of 10 pages each; each chapter revolves around some…

Rating: 8.4/10. Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success by Tom Eisenmann It is well known that most startups fail. This book examines common failure patterns for startups through case studies: beginning with the problems faced by early-stage startups, then another different set of problems faced by startups as they grow. The case…

Rating: 7.6/10. That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea by Marc Randolph Story of the early days of Netflix, from its founding in 1997 until its IPO in 2002. The author is a serial entrepreneur: after his previous company got acquired, he starts brainstorming new business ideas…

Rating: 8.3/10. Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups — Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000 by Jason Calacanis Book that’s meant to be a guide for angel investors, but is also a good reference for founders who are looking to raise funding to understand what investors are looking for….

Rating: 8.2/10. The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you by Rob Fitzpatrick Book about how to validate startup ideas by talking to customers, and common mistakes that founders make when they try to do so. Unlike many business books,…

Rating: 8.4/10. The Business of Venture Capital: The Art of Raising a Fund, Structuring Investments, Portfolio Management, and Exits by Mahendra Ramsinghani A comprehensive guide to how the world of venture capital works and what it takes to be successful as a VC. The job of a VC is to take money from investors, identify…

Rating: 7.6/10. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Book by tech CEO and venture capitalist, founder of the Andreessen-Horowitz VC firm. The first part tells the story of his role as CEO of Loudcloud and Opsware. His company ran into trouble during the…

Rating: 8.0/10. Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works by Ash Maurya Guide on early stages of a startup, recommended by Hussein Fazal (CEO of Snaptravel). Many new founders assume building a startup is the same as building a product, but in reality, you are building a business model, with the…

Rating: 7.7/10. Book Review: Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson Book written by two venture capitalist investors, meant to guide entrepreneurs through the VC funding process. After the founders have decided how much money they want to raise, gives a presentation, and the VC is…

Rating: 6.8/10. Book that claims to be about startup growth, but is really the story of the rise and fall of the author’s own company. After seeing his coworkers struggle to find dates online, he quit his job at Lehman Brothers to start an online dating company. In the early stages, especially since the product…

Rating: 7.7/10. Founders have to make a lot of critical decisions during the course of a startup, that will affect its outcome years down the line. The first decision is whether to quit your job and do a startup: ideally you should have the right career conditions (knowledge of an industry), supportive family, and the…

Rating: 5.0/10. I got this book because options are a big part of tech company compensation and people don’t understand them that well, so I wanted to get a better understanding of them. This book sorta does it, but most of it focuses on all sorts of very technical tax details. It was so taxing…