Recommended reading for entrepreneurs

The Opportunity

Business Modeling

Business Planning

Test Marketing

Entrepreneurial Reading List

These are all first rate books for entrepreneurs to read and use. Don't overlook these important resources on strengthening your inner game for the challenges ahead.

The AVC Smart Startup Guide by Peter Ireland
This is the Internet classic on finnacing your startup which has been selling since 1996. Savvy entrepreneurs create money; rookies wait for someone to hand it to them. Don't waste a year of your life making the same startup mistakes as others. Instead discover what works and what doesn't before you even start. Click Buy Now button to order. 220 pages in pdf.

Go Big or Go Home by Wil Schroter

This may well be the best book ever written on starting an online business and growing it fast. Real Fast.

Finding Fertile Ground by Scott A Shane

Still looking for the right opportunity? This book will help you to clarify your thinking and identify the do-able opportunities.

The Entrepreneur's Success Kit by Kaleil A Tuzman (of Startup.com fame)

This is a highly recommended kit for first time entrepreneurs. It consists of two CDs, two small books, and several hundred laminated flash cards with business lessons, contacts, and references for additional reading. The section on identifying your primary source of entrepreneurial motivation is alone worth the price of admission. If you match the wrong type of business for your prime motivation, it will most likely fail. Discover your key motivator as an entrepreneur and start right.

Zero to IPO by David Smith

The essential manual for anyone looking at starting a fast growth company financed with other people's money (OPM). This manual does the best job I have ever seen of explaining the four possible outcomes for such a company. It uses a dramatic graphic called "Startup Island" to enable you to grasp the big picture. Startup Island has three peaks in descending order of elevation (i.e., valuation): IPO, cashflow sale, and asset sale. The fourth possible outcome is landing in the "Shutdown Sea". (No, investor-backed companies will not be allowed to just limp along indefinitely.) Get this one so that you can sound as if you know what to expect when being drilled by potential investors.

Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard

An instant classic from one of the great entrepreneurs of the past 50 years, Yvon Chouinard, who founded and built Patagonia. The first half of the book tells the Patagonia story. The second half explains the company's successful operating principles, which can be applied to your company.

Smart Mobs by Howard Rheingold
The cell phone is rapidly evolving into the "remote control" for your life. Start discovering the entrepreneurial opportunities presented by wireless technology.

Money From Thin Air by O. Casey Corr
The story of cellular pioneer Craig McCaw and the creation of McCaw Cellular.

Get Slighty Famous by Steven van Yoder, a manual on marketing yourself as the "go to" expert in your field.

Business Articles (Free)

Richard Branson, entrepreneur extraordinaire. Short 6 page article reveals some of Branson's secrets of entrepreneurial succcess. Article.

Rules to Live By and Break, Thomas Stemberg, founder of Staples shares his as an entrepreneur. Article.

Entrepreneurs Analyzed, article written by an academic at Europe's top B-School explores how entrepreneurs think. Article.

Discussion Forum: Shoot the
breeze with other entrepreneurs.

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