August 8th, 2006
Choice Business Books
Malgosia & I have read quite a few business books over the last year or so–Nuvvo has been our Self-Directed MBA. There are a lot of horrible book choices out there… but we did find a few that helped us:
The Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki — At the bottom for a reason: by the time we read this book, we found most of the material too introductory. For real beginners looking for some advice that will later seem obvious, its a good choice. Its quite short though, why not read it?
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell — A lot of fun to read. You won’t find a lot of practical information, its not really a business book afterall, but it will get you in the right frame of mind and set you up well for either of the next two books.
The Innovator’s Solution, Clayton M. Christensen & Michael E. Raynor — Very useful. Well, the first four chapters at least. Great practical strategies to devise and refine strategy. This, apparently, is a follow up to another successful book called the Innovator’s Delema which I haven’t read.
Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne — A slightly better version of The Innovator’s Solution. It feels to me less academic & more readable. (Full disclosure: I didn’t finish it.)
The Cluetrain Manifesto, Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, & David Weinberger — As pompous as it is important. Some of the ideas seem a little obvious now, but it was published in 1999 and so many of the ideas have had time to catch hold.
The Long Tail, Chris Anderson — My personal favorite. This book has a very clear thesis, and my guess is that this book contains the most historically-profound observations. Its in the veine of Freakonomics and The Tipping Point, but I found it more interesting and lucid.
So, what to read next… any suggestions?
I’m planning to write up a similar post on my blog some day.
Another excellent book I would recommend is
The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steven Gary Blank. Also take a look at Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch by Kenneth Hess, where he chronicles his experience in building a company from scratch.