I am an ardent believer in the fact that leaders are readers. In my entrepreneurial growth, I have received guidance from mentors and professional contacts. Then, of course, my education and learning guided me. However, books remain my primary choice when I wish to re-ignite that innovating spark in me.
An entrepreneurial journey is never a smooth sail, as many of us might experience. Therefore, it is wise to learn from others’ experiences to run a business successfully in many real-life situations. Unfortunately, we have a limited scope for learning by doing. This is why I prefer reading entrepreneurial books as and when time permits.
Sure, my routine brims with meetings, deadlines, customer engagement and other crucial business tasks. But I can’t stand the guilt of missing out on the joy of reading and learning despite a tight schedule.
Guess who inspires me in reading? Renowned investors and successful leaders, who all take pride in being bookworms.
Do you know that Warren Buffet read 600 to 1,000 pages daily in the early days of his career? Even now, he dedicates 80% of his day to reading.
Similarly, Bill Gates is another world-renowned book lover. He also blogs his thoughts and learnings from book reading.
5 Books That Inspired My Entrepreneual Journey
I would like to introduce to you five books I have read during my startup journey and how they made an indelible impression on my thought process.
1. How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, by Katy Milkman
Switching to full-time entrepreneurship demands behavioural change. We must eliminate habits that can hinder our growth and adopt those that push us towards success.
This book reveals the related behavioural science hidden in accomplishing this behavioural change.
I suggest this book to anyone passionate about inculcating the necessary change to elevate themselves professionally.
2. The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls that Can Sink a Startup, by Noam Wasserman
Let me put figures first before telling you why I loved this book.
The success rate of startups falls every year. Not every startup makes it to a decade of successful journey.
A staggering 50% of startups fail in the first five years. Do you know why?
Pitfalls and disastrous mistakes are often the culprits.
The Founder’s Dilemmas discusses this situation from end to end. It guides how decisions made by founders can make or break their success journey.
Plus, it focuses on eliminating such pitfalls and attaining the much-needed balance between resource pooling and business growth.
3. Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success, by Shane Snow
Have you ever wondered how some startups grow to billion babies in just a couple of months?
Because their founders know the real secret behind growing them– the mentality that converts negative feedback to optimism; plus, they also have mentoring traits that bring the best out of their teams.
Smartcuts debunks many success myths and opens up secrets to intelligent work to accomplish a lot quickly.
4. Funding Your Startup: And Other Nightmares, by Dhruv Nath and Sushanto Mitra
If there is the worst nightmare to kickstart a startup, indisputably, it is funding.
Trying your luck at sharks and winning the big fat check can make or break your entrepreneurial dream.
Funding Your Startup throws invaluable insights into why some startups fail at funding.
The book also brings together the experiences and suggestions of established startup founders such as Deep Kalra of MakeMyTrip, Yashish Dahiya of PolicyBazaar, Dinesh Agarwal of IndiaMART Sairee Chahal of SHEROES.
The persistent framework that the authors developed to improve the chances of funding will surely help you.
5. What You Do is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture, by Ben Horowitz
What elevates an excellent startup to great? Funding? Marketing? Scaling?
While all these factors play their role, I believe leadership predominates in a startup’s reputation. And reputation is a magnet that attracts or repels customer trust.
Ben Horowitz discusses what makes a founder a good leader and how to become one.
Till I read this book, I was under the notion that startups thrive through marketing.
But, What You Do is Who You Have shattered this idea and taught me that good leadership is a cornerstone for a startup’s success.
Ignite your Inner Selves by Reading
As Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder of Alltop and Entrepreneur, says, “Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.”
Thanks to the unforeseen hurdles and lack of experience, the startup journey can, at times, be depressing and demotivating. We might feel like giving it all up, which is when we must realise the responsibility on our shoulders and why we have come this far.
At such a juncture, reading can help correct our approaches. I am sure these books will kindle your leadership spirit, bolster entrepreneurship traits and drive you towards realising your startup dreams.
Until then, wish you the best of luck and hard work. Happy reading.
