- The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating & avoiding the pitfalls that can sink a Startup by Noam Wasserman
Noam Wasserman teaches a class called ‘Founder’s Dilemmas’ at Harvard Business School. This book is the culmination of Noam’s actual research and that class. He mainly focuses on the key dilemmas that a startup founder will face when starting a company. All the information related to founder dynamics, solo founders, optimal number of founders and their roles and relationships, equity allocations between founders is covered in the book.
- The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Business by Eric Reis
Eric Reis talks about the lean startup approach that is being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. It fosters companies that are not only capital efficient but also focus human creativity more effectively. The book also highlights the current trend toward quick, low-cost startups that prefer action over research. The impressive insights that Reis provides can be applied to any startup, making this book a must read for all promising entrepreneurs.
- Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull
This book contains made-up stories about administrative and business hierarchies. The idea of the Peter Principle has been explained very lucidly. “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his/her level of incompetence.” When people perform well at their job, they are eligible for promotion. This cycle continues until they are promoted to a role for which they are incompetent to perform the duties. At that point they have reached their ‘final placement’. They are no longer eligible for further promotions because they have reached their level of incompetence. The authors have tried to address the question of incompetence in the work force today. Entrepreneurs may get to understand staffing issues from a whole new perspective.