The Art of the Start 2.0
Guy Kawasaki
Former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki packs the whole start of a venture into short, punchy chapters: finding a purpose, pitching, bootstrapping, recruiting, raising money and selling.
First published 200412 books in this topic
Startup Method Books: Lean, Customer Development and Business Models
These startup method books give founders a repeatable process for turning a raw idea into a business that customers pay for. Most of them grew out of the same shift in the 2000s, when Steve Blank, Eric Ries and Alexander Osterwalder argued that a startup is a search for a working business model and should be run as a series of tests.
Read one process book first (The Lean Startup or Disciplined Entrepreneurship), then pick up a tool book such as Business Model Generation or Sprint when you need a workshop format for your team.
The oldest book here is The One Page Business Plan (1998); the newest is The Startup Playbook (2018).
Business Model Generation
Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
The visual handbook that introduced the Business Model Canvas. Osterwalder and Pigneur show how to describe any business on one page and redesign it with patterns and workshop techniques.
First published 2010Disciplined Entrepreneurship
Bill Aulet
Aulet, who leads the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, breaks a new venture into 24 steps, starting with one narrow first market and ending with a product plan you can defend.
First published 2013The Four Steps to the Epiphany
Steve Blank
The book that started customer development. Blank argues that startups fail for lack of customers rather than lack of product, and lays out four stages to find, test and grow a market.
First published 2005The Lean Startup
Eric Ries
Ries treats a startup as an experiment run under extreme uncertainty. Build the smallest thing that tests a belief, measure what customers do, then persevere or pivot.
First published 2011The One Page Business Plan
Jim Horan
Jim Horan shows how to squeeze a business plan onto one page with five short sections, so the plan is something you read and update every month instead of a document that gathers dust.
First published 1998Rework
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Short, blunt essays from the founders of 37signals (now Basecamp) on building a small business that makes money from day one, with less planning, fewer meetings and no investors.
First published 2010Sprint
Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz
A day-by-day recipe from three Google Ventures partners for answering a big question in five days: map the problem, sketch ideas, decide, build a realistic prototype and test it with customers.
First published 2016The Startup Checklist
David S. Rose
Angel investor David S. Rose lists the concrete steps founders skip and regret later: incorporation, equity splits, lawyers, boards, accounting and banking, in the order you need them.
First published 2016The Startup Owner's Manual
Steve Blank and Bob Dorf
A thick, checklist-driven field manual for customer development. Blank and Dorf walk founders from first hypotheses to a company ready to grow, with separate tracks for web and physical products.
First published 2012The Startup Playbook
Rajat Bhargava and Will Herman
Two serial founders with 11 companies between them share frank advice for a first startup, written from the founder's side of the table, with plenty on investors, boards and fundraising.
First published 2018Value Proposition Design
Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Greg Bernarda and Alan Smith
The companion to Business Model Generation. It zooms into two boxes of the canvas and gives founders a visual tool for matching what they offer to the jobs, pains and gains of a customer segment.
First published 2014Free Fe/male Switch tools for this topic
- Startup Playbook moduleFree F/MS Startup School module
- Business Model Canvas generatorFree F/MS tool
- Lean Canvas toolFree F/MS tool
- Build a startup with the Mean frameworkStep-by-step guide for first-time founders
- Methods to find the problemStep-by-step guide on a sister F/MS directory
- Solution validation SOPsStep-by-step guide on a sister F/MS directory
Other startup book topics
Customer validationCustomer interviews, experiments and proof that people will pay.StrategyWhere to compete, how to win and how platforms and monopolies work.Disruption and technologyDisruption theory, AI-era companies, DevOps and creative confidence.Founder storiesMemoirs and histories that show what building a company feels like.Leadership and managementHiring, goals, culture and leading a team through hard calls.Mindset and habitsHabits, decision-making, resilience and designing a working life.Money and fundingCash flow, term sheets, investors and selling your company.Marketing and salesPositioning, messaging, word of mouth and building a sales process.Product and growthProduct discovery, habit-forming products, traction channels and scaling.Women and inclusive foundersAdvice, stories and money talk for women and underrepresented founders.Business skillsHow a business works, negotiation, persuasion and startup ecosystems.
Or browse the full directory of 100 startup books.