Here is a list of books that I genuinely think and feel every startup founder MUST READ to avoid flopping their business by repeating mistakes others have already made—mistakes I think are stupid to repeat, yet ones I find myself still committed to avoiding. Meanwhile, I see others racing toward success on paths where they remain blind to the cliffs ahead, cliffs they will fall from by default if they don’t actively look for them.

Note: This is an ongoing effort; I’ll be adding more books as I read more over time.

For the time being, I will only provide book titles, but not any more detailed comments or clarification here. The book recommendations are genuine—ones that I have read thoroughly, page by page, with hand-written detailed notes—and I sincerely hope any startup founder or VC wishing to help founders would take the time and effort to read them thoroughly if they haven’t already.

The List

  1. The Right It: Why So Many Ideas Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeed by Alberto Savoia
  • A crisp, practical guide to product–market fit—and how to test and measure it.
  1. Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future by Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman
  • A contrarian framework for spotting truly disruptive start-ups, plus guidance on how to build one.
  1. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke
  • A solid primer on decision-making under moderate uncertainty (Mediocristan), not extreme uncertainty. Trading and entrepreneurship live in Extremistan, but this will still sharpen everyday judgment and cut avoidable errors.
  1. The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth by Ilya A. Strebulaev and Alex Dang
  • A clear window, for founders, into how VCs think, decide, and act. If you want the VC mental model, start here.
  1. Measure What Matters: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth by John Doerr
  • The classic playbook for OKRs: set the right goals, measure what matters, and execute.
  1. The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects by Andrew Chen
  • A must-read for any entrepreneur—even if you’re not building a network-effects business. It’s so insightful and refreshing that if you can’t finish it cover-to-cover, you probably don’t have strong conviction for entrepreneurship.
  1. Radical Candor: Fully Revised and Updated Edition: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean by Kim Scott
  • Must-read on how to communicate properly.
  1. High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People by Elad Gil
  • A solid distillation of scaling pitfalls. I think it is well worth reading to learn from others’ mistakes rather than your own.
  1. User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product by Jeff Patton with Peter Economy
  • Somewhat outdated on longer planning horizons. The quickest path is shipping and gathering real market feedback. That said, some principles hold up well: using conversations and documents to build shared understanding, and the emphasis on deep user research. Story-mapping is useful too, though best done in a single sitting, followed by rapidly shipping and iterating to get fresh, actionable data to test market fit.