Top Startup 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 Startup books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Startup

Understanding the concepts of Startup 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 Hard Thing About Hard Things

"The Hard Thing About Hard Things" by Ben Horowitz is a guide for entrepreneurs and leaders that offers practical advice on managing difficult situations in business, including laying off employees, handling investor relationships, and making tough decisions.

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Who: The A Method for Hiring

The four steps of the WHO method are 1) Scorecard, 2) Source/Search, 3) Interview, and 4) Grade/Select. A hiring scorecard is also called an interview scorecard. By creating a scorecard, the hiring team standardizes the hiring process so that each qualified candidate is given the same treatment.

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Start Something That Matters

Start Something That Matters by Blake, the founder of TOMS is the story of how he built a for-profit company where, for every pair of shoes purchase, he gives another one to kids in need. In the book he provides advice in how we all should do something to create social impact in society.

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Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days is a collection of interviews with founders of famous technology companies about what happened in the very earliest days. These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea?

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Zero to Sold

It's easy to build software products. The hard part is turning them into viable businesses that stand the test of time. If you want to build a business that survives, you have to know what challenges you will encounter. Zero to Sold tells the story of a sustainable, bootstrapped software business that grew to thousands of customers before it was acquired.

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The Startup Checklist: 25 Steps to a Scalable, High-Growth Business

The Startup Checklist is the entrepreneur's essential companion. While most entrepreneurship books focus on strategy, this invaluable guide provides the concrete steps that will get your new business off to a strong start. You'll learn the ins and outs of startup execution, management, legal issues, and practical processes throughout the launch and growth phases, and how to avoid the critical …

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Additional Startup Reading

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

Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age

“Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age” offers a deep dive into the mechanics of virality. Jonah Berger's STEPPS framework (Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, Stories) provides a clear roadmap for anyone looking to boost their product or idea's word-of-mouth potential.Sep 25, 2023

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Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap ... and Others Don't

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't is a management book by Jim C. Collins that describes how companies transition from being good companies to great companies, and how most companies fail to make the transition

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Running Lean

Running Lean is about testing a vision by measuring how customers behave. Running Lean is about engaging customers throughout the product development cycle. Running Lean tackles both product and market validation in parallel using short iterations. Running Lean is a disciplined and rigorous process.

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The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup

The Founder's Dilemmas is the first book to examine the early decisions by entrepreneurs that can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them.

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Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea into a Global Business

Conventional wisdom says most startups need to be in Silicon Valley, started by young engineers around a sexy new idea, and backed by VC funding. But as Mikkel Svane reveals in Startupland, the story of founding Zendesk was anything but conventional. Founded in a Copenhagen loft by three thirty-something friends looking to break free from corporate doldrums, Zendesk Inc. is now one of the hott…

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Zero to One

Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition alt…

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Specializations and Deeper Startup Knowledge

You've got your basics in order – time to move on to some advanced and specialized concepts. Startup is evolving every day, these books can help you master it.

Unlock AI Mastery: Secrets to Accelerate Business Growth and Dominate Competitors with Proven AI Strategies

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) is not just a tool—it's a game-changer. Unlock AI Mastery demystifies AI and reveals practical strategies for leveraging its transformative power to revolutionize your business. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this comprehensive guide provides actionable insights into harnessing AI to streamline …

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Mastering the VC Game

Jeffrey Bussgang is one of a very few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. Now he draws on his unique perspective to offer high-level insights, colorful stories, and practical advice gathered from his own experience as well as from interviews with dozens of the most successful entrepreneurs and VCs. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partn…

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Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms

Jeffrey Bussgang is one of a very few people who have played on both sides of this high-stakes game. Now he draws on his unique perspective to offer high-level insights, colorful stories, and practical advice gathered from his own experience as well as from interviews with dozens of the most successful entrepreneurs and VCs. He reveals how to get noticed, perfect a pitch, and negotiate a partn…

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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Do you feel overlooked? Do you believe you could perform at a higher level if you were given the opportunity? And yet, you are surrounded by incompetent managers who have been promoted above their capabilities? Nothing frustrates me more than this situation. To think they're not seeing your potential, that …

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Hi, I’m Zehra. I’m based in New York, and I’m the founder and CEO of Savanah.ai, a generative AI platform that helps fashion and retail brands create high-quality product visuals without the cost or hassle of traditional photoshoots. We’re building tools that make creativity scalable and commerce more dynamic. My …

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Across my 16+ years in product management at Google, Microsoft, and assorted venture-backed startups, I've had the privilege of receiving mentorship from luminaries including Paul Graham, Sam Altman, and Kai Fu Lee. I know not everyone gets these mentorship opportunities, so I am here to share my experience with a …

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