The best books for first-time founders
Starting a business teaches you a lot, much of it expensively. Books are the cheapest way to borrow other people's mistakes before you make your own. These are the ones we would give to anyone about to start out, grouped by the stage where they help most.
Before you start: is this worth doing?
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
If you read only one book before starting a business, make it this one. Fitzpatrick's point is simple and slightly uncomfortable: when you ask people whether they like your idea, they lie to be kind. Your mum will say it is brilliant, and so will most strangers.
The book shows you how to ask better questions. Talk about people's lives and past behaviour rather than your idea, ask what they have already tried and spent money on, and listen for problems they care about enough to act on. It is short, practical and will save you from building something nobody wants.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Ries popularised the idea of the minimum viable product: the smallest version of your idea that lets you learn whether it works. His build, measure, learn loop encourages founders to test assumptions quickly rather than spending a year perfecting something in private.
Some of the language has become startup cliché, but the core lesson remains sound. Treat your business plan as a set of guesses, and find the cheapest, fastest way to test the riskiest one first.
Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Thiel's book is provocative and deliberately contrarian. He argues that the most valuable businesses create something genuinely new rather than competing in crowded markets, and he encourages founders to ask what important truth they believe that few others agree with.
You do not need to agree with all of it, and much of it is aimed at technology startups chasing huge markets. But it is a useful challenge to anyone tempted to launch a slightly cheaper copy of something that already exists.
Getting your first customers
Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
Many founders build a good product and then discover they have no idea how to reach customers. Traction lays out nineteen different channels for growth, from search engine optimisation and paid advertising to partnerships, trade shows and public relations, with interviews from founders who used each one.
Its most useful idea is the bullseye framework: brainstorm every channel, test the most promising few cheaply, then focus hard on the one that works. As people who have spent years in paid traffic and search, we think that focus is the right lesson. Most businesses grow through one or two channels done very well, not ten done adequately.
$100M Offers by Alex Hormozi
Hormozi's book is about building an offer so good that people feel foolish saying no. His value equation is a useful lens: the value people see in an offer rises with the result they want and their belief that they will get it, and falls with how long it takes and how much effort it demands.
The style is loud and the title is pure marketing, but the thinking is sharp. Working through your offer with the value equation often reveals easy improvements, such as a guarantee, a faster start or less work for the customer, that matter more than a lower price.
Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
When you are explaining a new business, clarity beats cleverness. Miller's framework helps you describe what you do in terms of the customer's problem and the result they want, which makes websites, pitches and adverts far easier to write. We include it in our list of marketing books that shaped how we work, and it is just as valuable to founders.
Building something that lasts
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Gerber's central idea has saved countless small business owners from burnout. Most businesses, he argues, are started by technicians, people good at a particular skill, who then find themselves trapped doing everything. He urges founders to work on the business, not just in it, by building systems that let it run without them doing every task personally.
It reads a little dated in places, but the lesson is timeless. Write down how things are done, so they can be taught, improved and handed over. If your business stops when you go on holiday, you have a job, not a business.
Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
The founders of software company 37signals wrote this as a collection of short, punchy essays challenging conventional business wisdom. Stay small if you like, avoid unnecessary meetings, launch before you feel ready, and do not confuse being busy with being productive.
It is a quick, refreshing read, and a good antidote to the idea that every business must chase investment and rapid growth.
Company of One by Paul Jarvis
Jarvis takes the idea further, making the case that growth is a choice rather than an obligation. A business that stays deliberately small can be more profitable, more resilient and far more enjoyable to run. It is a thoughtful book for anyone who started out wanting freedom and is wondering why they now feel like the most overworked employee in the building.
When things get hard
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
Most business books are written with hindsight, when everything has worked out. Horowitz writes about the periods when it nearly did not: laying people off, running out of money, making decisions with no good options. He calls it "the struggle", and he is honest about how lonely it can feel.
It is aimed at technology founders, but anyone who has lain awake worrying about payroll will recognise themselves in it.
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
Phil Knight's memoir of building Nike reads like a novel. Far from an overnight success, the company spent years lurching from one cash crisis to the next, with suppliers, banks and partners all threatening to pull the plug.
It is the most enjoyable book on this list, and an important reminder that even companies that look inevitable in hindsight were held together by persistence, luck and a great deal of improvisation.
The lesson we wish we had read about sooner
There is one lesson we wish a book had drummed into us earlier, because learning it first-hand nearly cost us the business.
For a number of years, most of our income came from a single client. It felt like success: the work was steady, the relationship was good and the figures looked healthy. Then that client went bust. Almost overnight, the majority of our revenue disappeared, and we had to rebuild far faster than anyone would choose to.
We survived it, and it changed how we run the business. Today our income is spread across hundreds of websites in many countries, precisely so that no single failure can take everything with it.
If you take one thing from this article, take this: keep an eye on how much of your income depends on your largest customer, channel or supplier, and treat a high figure as a risk rather than a success. The time to spread that risk is while things are going well, not after the phone call comes.
How to read business books well
Read with a pen. Business books are most useful when you treat them as a set of ideas to test, not rules to follow. After each one, write down a single change you will make to how you work this month, and then make it. One applied idea beats ten remembered ones.
Mix memoirs with practical books. The practical ones tell you what to do; the memoirs remind you that everyone else found it hard too.
A reading plan by stage
- Thinking about starting: The Mom Test, then The Lean Startup.
- First customers: Traction, then $100M Offers.
- Growing beyond yourself: The E-Myth Revisited, then Rework.
- When it gets tough: The Hard Thing About Hard Things and Shoe Dog.
Where to start
No book will build your business for you, but the right one at the right moment can save months of effort and a lot of money. Start with The Mom Test before you build anything, keep The E-Myth in mind as you grow, and pick up Shoe Dog when you need reminding that every success story had its dark days. If you want to get more done before you hire anyone, our guide to how founders can put AI to work is worth reading next.