Library
The right book for the problem you have now.
A curated shelf of 49 books for first-time founders. Every book personally read. Every summary ends with a Practice Card.
49 books · 1 Practice Card each
All books
49 booksAtomic Habits
James Clear
For when discipline keeps depending on motivation that keeps disappearing.
Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0
Jim Collins & Bill Lazier
For when you want the founder bible written by someone who actually built one.
Blue Ocean Strategy
W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne
For when the market you're chasing is bloody and you suspect there's a clearer one.
Built to Last
Jim Collins
For when you're optimizing for a quarter when you should be designing for a decade.
Business Model Generation
Alexander Osterwalder
For when the unit economics are vague and you suspect you don't actually have a business.
Change by Design
Tim Brown
For when you keep shipping things that don't fit the people you built them for.
Competitive Advantage
Michael Porter
For when 'first-mover' isn't actually a strategy and you need a real one.
Dare to Lead
Brené Brown
For when the leadership being asked of you is harder than the work you actually love.
Decisive
Chip & Dan Heath
For when the four villains of decision-making keep ambushing you in the same week.
Don't Make Me Think
Steve Krug
For when users keep getting confused by the thing you built to help them.
Drive
Daniel Pink
For when you can't figure out what motivates anyone — including yourself.
Essentialism
Greg McKeown
For when your week is full and your progress is empty.
Free
Chris Anderson
For when 'free with upsell' feels like the answer — and you need to know why it might be the trap.
Getting to Yes
Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton
For when adversarial wins keep costing you the relationship.
Good Strategy, Bad Strategy
Richard Rumelt
For when your strategy doc is full of goals and empty of logic.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie
For when you keep losing the room and don't know why.
Ikigai
Héctor García & Francesc Miralles
For finding work that's meaningful, possible, and yours.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Robert Cialdini
For when you can't tell why some pitches land and others don't.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Peter Drucker
For when 'opportunity' feels mystical and you want it to be discoverable.
Inspired
Marty Cagan
For when product feels like guesswork and you want the discipline.
It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be
Paul Arden
For when ambition feels like the only honest measure left.
Made to Stick
Chip & Dan Heath
For when your idea is good but it's not landing.
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl
For when endurance becomes the only thing left.
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
For when the mind itself is the obstacle.
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Carol Dweck
For when every setback starts feeling like proof you are not good enough.
Multipliers
Liz Wiseman
For when you suspect you're a smart leader but a draining boss.
Never Split The Difference
Chris Voss
For when negotiation has become a verb you're afraid of.
On Becoming a Leader
Warren Bennis
For when 'leader' is the role you walked into without learning it.
Psycho-Cybernetics
Maxwell Maltz
For when your self-image quietly caps what your company can become.
Start With Why
Simon Sinek
For clarifying the reason your company deserves to exist.
Switch
Chip & Dan Heath
For when you know what to change but can't make it stick.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
Al & Laura Ries
For when 'brand' feels like a vibe — and you want a discipline.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Stephen Covey
For when your daily reactions don't match the founder you want to be.
The Art of Innovation
Tom Kelley
For when creativity feels like a personality trait — and you want it to be a process.
The Art of the Start
Guy Kawasaki
For when you don't know which of the founder-tasks comes first.
The Design of Everyday Things
Don Norman
For when blame for misuse keeps falling on the user instead of the design.
The Dip
Seth Godin
For when 'should I quit?' is the only question that matters this week.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Patrick Lencioni
For when team meetings produce decisions that nobody actually executes.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben Horowitz
For when nothing else helps — and the loneliness of the hard week is what you actually need named.
The Lean Startup
Eric Ries
For when you've been building too long and you're scared of the silence at launch.
The Obstacle Is the Way
Ryan Holiday
For when the next step looks like a wall — and you've forgotten that walls are paths.
The Power of Habit
Charles Duhigg
For when you keep promising yourself you'll change a behavior — and keep not doing it.
The Power of Now
Eckhart Tolle
For when the future you can't control is preventing you from doing what you can.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Mark Manson
For when caring about everything is making you incapable of caring about anything.
Thinking in Bets
Annie Duke
For when you keep judging decisions by outcomes instead of by quality of bet.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
For when your gut keeps making decisions your spreadsheet would have stopped.
Well-designed
John Kolko
For when designing for users keeps becoming designing by committee.
What Got You There Won't Get You There
Marshall Goldsmith
For when the strengths that got you here are now what's holding you back.
Zero to One
Peter Thiel
For when 'better than competitors' feels like the wrong answer to the wrong question.
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