The Trident of Startup Books
Book is the window of the world — Anonymous
I used to hate reading books when I was a kid, even though my father always encourages me to do so with so many mumbo jumbos. But it all changed right after I graduated university and started pursuing an entrepreneur-like life with my close friends. A bunch of undergrads trying their fortunes in the world full of uncertainty, with little to no working or business experiences, we started looking for resources where we can learn anything there is to know about the world we were about to enter. We decided to buy a bunch of entrepreneur related books and read it altogether.
The purpose of this writing is to give you some references about top 3 must-read books that you should be reading if you happen to be in a same boat as I was (especially if you are trying to build your own startup or business. I am in no means a brilliant mind or already successful entrepreneur (I in fact left the company that I built with my close friends after 1,5 years of hustle), but I just think wouldn’t it be nice if we could share values to other? And lastly, these books are some that I have read myself.
So here are my top 3 must-read books to build a product or startup.
Start with Why : How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action — Simon Sinek
Every great company has a grand vision that they want to achieve. An ideal type of world that they want to live in. Whatever types of company that you want to create, having a crystal-clear vision is a must. Start with Why is a book that will show you how some of the most successful company, leader, motivator in the world manage to attract so many people to stand by their side.
This book will help you realize the importance of vision or “WHY” and how to test it within your company or sometimes anything that you do. Written by Simon Sinek, an optimist, motivator, and expert at leadership. He also has one of the most watch TED Talks of all times talking about the idea of WHY.
Hooked : How to Build Habit-Forming Product — Nir Eyal
Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Amazon. They are the first company that comes to mind when it comes to fulfilling our desire for social gratification. What do these company have in common? They are companies that are able to create services that form certain habits within their users. So, what are the secrets behind those habit-forming technologies?
Nir Eyal, an expert at behavioral psychology will help you build your own habit-forming app or services with a framework or pattern that he has seen working within those successful companies. In this book — Hooked — he will explain the framework called “Hook Model” that will allow your app or services to have a good customer retention day in and day out
Contagious : Why Things Catch On — Jonah Berger
Viral things are everywhere. We see it almost everyday through our the internet especially the social media. We have also seen a lot of applications or games that gains so much attention in a blink of an eye. And the question to that phenomenon is going to be “what is the secret to those products / applications / videos / posts’ virality?”
Jonah Berger, a marketing professor will unveil the answer in this book. Contagious will explain the key ingredients of viral things that he has found throughout his research and observations. This book definitely change the way I think about a product and in the way I design any applications for my client at the company where I work. It is going to challenge you on how to make a product or anything for that matter that requires less money to be thrown towards the marketing, or as he would call them “self-marketing product”.
I actually have one more book as a bonus which is SPRINT by Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky. This one is a wild card. But to be honest it was a tough one not to include this one in this top 3 list. This is the book that you want to read if you want to learn how to validate any idea for any type of project in an efficient short amount of time. The methodology used in this book has been implemented in companies like Slack, Facebook, LEGO, and many more. It was also developed by the guys from Google Venture and has been proven very effective and efficient.
So, those are my top 3 (+ 1) books that I think is very helpful for me as a designer and entrepreneur and also might just be beneficial to those in pursue of building their own business or startup.
Cheers, and see you on another post. :D
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