Top Product books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Product books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Product

Understanding the concepts of Product starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

The Design Of Everyday Things

The Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman about how design serves as the communication between object and user, and how to optimize that conduit of communication in order to make the experience of using the object pleasurable.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love―and that will work for your business.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Decode and Conquer: Answers to Product Management Interviews

Decode and Conquer is a fascinating book about how to succeed in product management interviews, especially case questions. It's essential reading for anyone trying to succeed in a competitive product management job market.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

The Hard Thing About Hard Things has been the most recommended book to me from numerous conversations with great entrepreneurs on my podcast Growth Mindset Podcast. It’s reached the point now that if I ask for a book recommendation for business advice, I add ‘other than the obvious Hard Thing About Things’.

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The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

The lean startup methodology is a method of managing and building a business or startup by experimenting, testing, and iterating while developing products based on findings from your tests and feedback.

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The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback

It walks you through how to: Determine your target customers Identify underserved customer needs Create a winning product strategy Decide on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Design your MVP prototype Test your MVP with customers Iterate rapidly to achieve product-market fit This book was written by entrepreneur and Lean product expert Dan Olsen whose experience spans product management, UX de…

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Additional Product Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Product, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product

User story mapping is a valuable tool for software development, once you understand why and how to use it. This insightful book examines how this often misunderstood technique can help your team stay focused on users and their needs without getting lost in the enthusiasm for individual product features.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Thinking, Fast and Slow

System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning our next vacation―each of these can be understood only by knowing how the t…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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