Fear of starting a business: how to work with it instead of waiting for it to go
Fear of starting a business doesn't disappear before you begin. It shrinks when you begin small. This is the most honest way I know to face it.
Leer más →Books for entrepreneurs that change how you think (not just what you do)
Some business books give you tactics. Others change how you see your company. These are the second kind.
There are two kinds of books about starting a business.
The ones that tell you what to do. And the ones that change how you think.
The first kind goes out of date. The second kind stays.
Here are six of the second kind. They fit a particular way of seeing a company: build with customers, grow with judgement and don't confuse size with success.
1. The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries
The classic. Its central idea: your business is a hypothesis, and your job is to test it fast and cheaply.
What it changes: you stop building to launch and start building to learn.
2. El libro negro del emprendedor, by Fernando Trías de Bes
One of the most widely read business books in Spanish. It's about why businesses fail, but from a useful angle: the reasons are almost never the ones you'd expect.
What it changes: it forces you to look honestly at your reasons for starting something.
3. Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
The founders of Basecamp have spent years proving that a tech company can be small, profitable and calm.
What it changes: it gives you permission not to grow for the sake of growing.
4. Company of One, by Paul Jarvis
The book's question is uncomfortable and necessary: what if, instead of growing, your business got better?
What it changes: you start measuring success in freedom rather than size.
5. The Mom Test, by Rob Fitzpatrick
A short book on how to talk to customers without them lying to you out of politeness.
What it changes: you stop asking "do you like my idea?" and start asking about their problem.
6. The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael E. Gerber
It explains why so many small businesses become a cage for their owner: the technician who starts a company and ends up working for it.
What it changes: you start working on your business, not just in it.
A good business book doesn't give you answers. It gives you better questions.
How to read them
One piece of advice: don't read them all back to back.
Read one. Keep one idea. Apply it for a month. Then the next.
A book that changes a single decision in your company has been worth it. Ten books read without changing anything are entertainment.
What isn't in any book
What really teaches you is the customer.
Books help you understand what's happening to you. But things only happen to you if you're out there, selling, building and listening.
Read. Then get out there.
P.S. On the idea that small is ambitious too: ambition doesn't have to mean size.