Building a business that grows and excels over the long term is difficult. There’s so much to figure out on the way, and such great effort and perseverance demanded of you by the process. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear how you should approach setting up and running a business that does well. That’s why books about entrepreneurship come in handy. The best books help you clear up misconceptions, define the best routes to success, and point to the examples of persons who have made a big impact with their ventures.
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If you are an entrepreneur and you’re seeking motivation to carry on, or you’re just in need of tried and tested tips for fashioning the next big hitter business, here are 10 books that’ll provide you with what you’re looking for.
Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
NPR
You’ve almost certainly heard about Steve Jobs, the man who brought the now trillion-dollar tech company Apple to life. But what do you know about his travails en route to becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs the world has ever seen? You’ll learn a lot of this from Walter Isaacson’s book. This biography lets you into what it takes to create products that people want.
The Virgin Way, by Richard Branson
The Wall Street Journal
Richard Branson, now a billionaire businessman, walks you through the ingredients for his triumph in global commerce. As founder of the Virgin Group, he has more than 5 decades of experience doing what he does best: building large thriving businesses. He shares how passion, relationships, and having a listening ear have all contributed to his many wins.
The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries
Paminy
When you’re founding a company, you can either choose to devote tons of hours to writing a comprehensive business plan, or—as Eric Ries advises –you could launch with a bare-bones product, learn from its success or failure, and modify it accordingly. This text is just right for you if you want a guide to starting an efficient business that punches well above its weight, with limited resources.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben Horowitz
Frog Capital
Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and partner at Andreessen Horowitz, which ranks first among Venture Capital firms concerning assets under management. He certainly has some words of wisdom to offer entrepreneurs. If you’re running or want to set up an online business, you’ll find this book useful. In it, Ben shares some advice for driving such a business to its zenith and even provides rare insights that the ‘experts’ typically don’t dole out.
Crush It!, by Gary Vaynerchuk
LinkedIn
Gary is well known in entrepreneur circles. That’s partly because he’s been able to build a personal brand around his business-related communication. But well before this phase, he scored a big win: growing his family’s wine business from a $4 million venture to a thriving $60 million company. In Crush It!, Gary tells his readers how to turn their web presence into a personal brand—exactly what he’s managed to achieve.
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The Startup Owner’s Manual, by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf
Medium
This one is a lengthy book, but it’s worth the time you’ll devote to it. Steve and Bob do a great job of weaving together the essentials of transitioning from the idea stage to the top startup. There’s plenty of support for what they say here too—charts, diagrams, graphs, and more. The book reveals all you’ll need to launch a startup that’s scalable and will make a big impact.
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
BookLab By Bjorn
As an entrepreneur, your success is helped—or hindered –by your ability to forge valuable business relationships. If you’re not very good at this, you’ll want to get some aid from Dale Carnegie. Written in the mid-1930s, this book has a lot of tips for nurturing contacts which remain useful today. Several million copies of How to Win Friends and Influence People have been sold; millions more have been impacted by it.
Start with Why, by Simon Sinek
Rory Lynch – Medium
If you’ve ever wanted a peep into the minds of some of the world’s greatest business leaders, Simon Sinek’s book will take you closer than most. Citing numerous examples, Sinek shows you how the most respected figures in commerce and industry think and interact with others. It’s a masterclass in leadership, set to text.
Good to Great, Jim Collins
Dominic Monkhouse
For 5 years, Jim Collins and his team pored over thousands of articles and produced numerous interviews regarding some of the world’s top businesses. The insights yielded by this process are summarized in the book Good to Great. It’s an excursion into the features that differentiate the hugely successful companies of global repute from their challengers.
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth
Simon & Schuster
It takes more than just fine ideas and a generous supply of resources to do well in business. Many who make it to the pinnacle of entrepreneurship do so with very little of these things, but lots of something else: grit. These people stick to the process of building, regardless of the obstacles they face. Angela tells us what this means in practice, and how grit can be the vehicle that takes you to the gates of success.
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Final Words
There’s no shortage of books on entrepreneurship and the art of building and running an exceptional business. The books we’ve talked about here are outstanding because they reveal tips and tactics that are just as useful in our local context as they are elsewhere in the world. You should read them if you’re serious about doing exceptionally well with your enterprise.
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Ikenna Nwachukwu holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He loves to look at the world through multiple lenses- economic, political, religious and philosophical- and to write about what he observes in a witty, yet reflective style.
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