Below is a list of 15 eBooks no entrepreneur should miss reading.
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss – $15.20 Kindle edition
This classic helps you find motivation if you’re unsure if you can take the leap and start your own business. It teaches you how to build a business from scratch using minimal resources and make it look like a fortune 500 company even though it’s only you behind the wheel. If you want to be more productive and find ways to automate as many tasks as possible, while focusing on the core business, this is a must read. It’s filled with tons of real world advice and templates on how to move your business forward in all areas.
Influence by Robert D.Cialdini – $10.99 Kindle edition
Persuasion is a key skill to master in business. It’s valuable in sales, negotiations, and partnerships. This book cover everything you need to know to understand and master persuasion, it explains the hidden tricks so you can stay alert and be aware of the situation while communicating with internal and external stakeholders. Understanding human psychology is vital in every business, and this book will not only teach you how to use it, but also make you realize the importance of it.
Contagious by Jonah Berger – $13.99 Kindle edition
If you’re on tight marketing budget or not, going viral with your product or service is beneficial. It’s cost efficient and word of mouth is a strong marketing tactic. Jonah Berger explains the mechanism of why things catch on, what goes viral and how. The book teaches you to spot the key ingredients that make people share and care. Triggering the right emotions at the right time with the right message is a skill every successful entrepreneur should master.
Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters – $18.10 Kindle edition
Paypal co-founder and early investor in Facebook, Peter Thiel knows how to build businesses. Yes, those are massive success stories, but you should always aim for the skies. This book will make you feel like a hero, and help you understand the underlying aspects of creating a business from nothing. Entrepreneurs are often told to listen to what customers want and not create anything more than a test product to later adapt it for success. Thiel talks about the importance to instead tell customers what they want, just like Apple did. We didn’t know that we wanted an iPhone since it didn’t exist. Steve Jobs told us that we wanted one. Influence by Robert D.Cialdini listed above is also extremely relevant in that aspect. Zero to One helps you learn to think for yourself, and to apply the ultimate strategy suited for your business.
The Art of the Start 2.0 by Guy Kawasaki – $19.97 Kindle Edition
As technology develops, new methods of creating businesses arise. Social Media, crowdfunding, and digital marketing are all cost effective methods to create a business today compared to 20 years ago. This book will help you deploy all these new tools in an efficient way, as well as help you manage fundamental challenges that have not changed as much, such as building a strong team. The Art of The Start will help you make your crazy ideas to stick in the constantly changing marketplace.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries – $6.24 Kindle Edition
A great framework can help any entrepreneur systematically create innovation and maximize the chances to succeed. You can use it as a checklist on how to develop your business into a successful machine. This is a step by step guide covering the start, learning, experimenting, testing, measuring, pivoting, adapting and growing– all aspects from start to finish. A must read for the ones who like to work systematically and have full control.
The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz – $16.99 Kindle Edition
Starting a business is great, but also challenging. You need to be aware that everything won’t go as planned all the time; to be prepared will help you stand up and rise in case you are on your way to fall. This book analyzes problems that entrepreneurs face each day. It talks about hard things from poaching competitors to firing employees and will help you predict the less pleasant situations and minimize the surprises when they happen.
The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuck – $11.99 Kindle Edition
This is a valuable read on how the Internet has given consumers their voice and a power to make it heard. You now have to compete on a different level. Marketing dollars are not as effective anymore, and it’s hard to buy your way into success and customer awareness. This book helps you scale personal one to one attention to your clients using social media platforms that carry word of mouth. It will show you how and why to care and interact with your customers, to harness the word-of-mouth power of social media platforms. Contagious by Jonah Berger works well with this book.
The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing by Quicksprout – Free eBook
You can’t afford to be missing out on content marketing. It’s a cost-efficient way to create buzz around your business and to drive traffic. Content marketing is also not as intrusive as traditional advertising and delivers value to the reader. The guide offers a number of ways to help you increase traffic, leads, and conversions.
The Ultimate Guide to A/B Testing by Oli Gardner and Carlos del Rio – Free eBook
Testing and measuring in order to know what works and what doesn’t is crucial. As you know more knowledge equals more power; the more data you have the better decisions you can take to create a positive impact on your business. You don’t want to drive without headlights in the dark right? This book will help you understand what to measure, why and how. It will help you create workflows and transform data into valuable information that can help your business decisions.
The Beginners Guide to Online Marketing by Neil Patel and Ritika Puri – Free eBook
This guide touches on all important aspects of online marketing strategies and makes sure you don’t miss out on any crucial steps when starting out with your online marketing efforts. It will help you be aware of your entire funnel, from the laser focus on customers to actual sales and everything needed in between in order to succeed online.
Unleashing The Ideavirus by Seth Godin – Free eBook
Is the customer always right? According to this book, the customer should spread the marketing message of your company, not you. The book helps you understand the value of the customer-to-customer dialogue, contrary to the traditional business-to-customer model. Godin calls the powerful customer-to-customer marketing method the Ideavirus. The book shows you how to create your own virus and how any business can use it to succeed in the world that is moving away from traditional marketing.
Measure What Matters by Kissmetrics – Free eBook
Another book about measuring what matters and staying informed to make the right decisions. You can’t afford to lack competence in this field. This book will show you how the lack of the proper analytics tools holds your business back, and will help you see the advantages of having correct data. Being aware of where the analytics industry is heading is highly important in order not to be surprised in the future.
How To Build Your First E-mail List In Only 3 Days by Mike Mercadante – Free eBook
This is a great book that helps you build an e-mail list from scratch. E-mail marketing might not sound so sexy, but it’s actually a powerful tool for today’s entrepreneurs. Effective e-mail marketing campaigns deliver a high return on investment and you have full control and ownership. This book offers a step by step formula to build your list and make it grow in only 3 days. What are you waiting for? Start building!
The Bootstrappers Bible by Seth Godin – Free Manifesto
Starting a business is hard, starting one with limited resources is even harder. Effective bootstrapping not only makes it possible to make progress with limited resources, it forces you to make smart decisions and avoid waste and mistakes. This manifesto by the marketing guru Seth Godin will show you how to start a business with no money and help you see the light even in dark times. What other books would you like to add to this list? Please share your knowledge to help entrepreneurs find content to learn from.
