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Friday, July 31, 2009

Useful Books for Entrepreneurs

Recently I have been reading a bunch of books that are useful for Entrepreneurs.
I wanted to share my thoughts and get your feedback on it.

Here is the list

1) Purple Cow by Seth Godin

A must read if you are looking to build a product/service that is customer
oriented. I like the focus on the product in a marketing book. Also Seth clearly
instructs the concept of Sneezers/Early Adopters in his book

2) The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

I am reading this book, the concept of the long tail has been explained and made popular on the internet. I also see similar concepts with this book and Purple Cow. This book is useful to my role at Citysearch. At Citysearch I work on the Search Marketing Product.
I see how we can use the concepts of the long tail in monetizing search queries.
I was introduced to the concept of the long tail a couple of years ago while working at the Search Engine Marketing team at Citysearch. I finally got around to reading this book.
On the internet as we see economics of scale come into picture and the ability to provide almost infinite choice to consumers I feel this book will gain more and more value

3) The four steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

My co-founder at Nurall , Karthik recommended that I take a look at this book.
The book focuses on the Customer Development Methodology. The focus on customer discovery and customer learning is nice. Also the step by step approach helps start ups.
We have incorporated this approach and methodology to building Nurall.com.
The introduction of a well defined process to the chaotic world of internet startups is great.
A must read if you are going to start any new company

I have the following books that I am going to start reading soon

4) The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

I am interested in this book to explore further how an ideavirus grows and spreads.
A small groups of people can influence a majority. Is this true? How does it work?
How do you recognize these Sneezers/Early Users/Geeks?

5) The Art of the Innovation by Tom Kelley

I am looking to read this book with the following open questions
Is innovation an art? How can it be practiced?
Creativity: how to be creative?

These books have been useful to me as we are working on building Nurall.com
I feel lucky that I can learn and apply the principles in an internet start up company.
I am always looking to find more books/resources that would help entrepreneurs.
If you have recommendations I would love to hear your feedback. If you like/dislike my list let me know.

Thanks
Ravi