The founder's bookshelf
I love reading thought-provoking books – usually by listening to an audiobook while out walking in the countryside, away from the desk. But if I’m honest, it’s often hard to remember the key lessons. Sometimes the real-life applications come later – by which time I’ve forgotten the important bits!
So I’m trying something new. As I come across books that actually shift my perspective, I’m going to share a short, practical breakdown of the ‘why’ and ‘how.’ I’m hoping it might help me – and maybe it will help a few others along the way. These are the books that I wish I'd read and digested when starting out as a founder. The links will take you to a short LinkedIn article about each book.
So I’m trying something new. As I come across books that actually shift my perspective, I’m going to share a short, practical breakdown of the ‘why’ and ‘how.’ I’m hoping it might help me – and maybe it will help a few others along the way. These are the books that I wish I'd read and digested when starting out as a founder. The links will take you to a short LinkedIn article about each book.
1. the founder's mindset: Scout or Soldier
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First up is Julia Galef’s The Scout Mindset. This really helped me think about how to balance being an expert who projects confidence (!) with actually experimenting and learning as you find out more.
Founding a business is messy! You don’t need to have all the answers – you just need to know how accurate your map is, and how to improve it. You need to be a scout rather than a soldier… |
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2. What You Do Is Who You Are: Building a Culture in Your Start-up
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Culture in a start-up is a tricky thing. It's hard to explain what it is, or how to build it – and yet it can be critical to the success of a business!
The reality is that your business is developing a culture right now, whether you're planning it or not. It also has a way of amplifying your own behaviour as a founder, for better or worse. That can be really annoying! I've just finished reading Ben Horowitz's 'What You Do is Who You are'. The title does a great job of making the main point – the book expands on it using some surprising examples...including Genghis Khan! I've shared my notes on four bits of the book that hit home for me, including the use of 'Shocking Rules' to guide behaviour, and why you should never take on 'Management Debt'. |
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3. Hell Yeah or No: Thinking About the Basics
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For a founder, I think the hardest questions can sometimes be the most basic – Why am I building a business at all? Is the idea good enough? What’s the company culture like when I’m not in the room?
Because these things are so fundamental, they tend to get buried under everything else going on. It’s easy to stop seeing them at all. This month I’ve been reading ‘Hell Yeah or No’ by Derek Sivers. It’s a bit different – it isn't a weighty business manual. It’s a collection of short pithy chapters that make you stop and look at your business (and yourself) with a bit of distance. It’s one of those books where something different jumps out at you each time you read it. I’ve picked out four bits that struck me this time, all dealing with the basics – from why fish don't know they're in water (!) and what that has to do with culture, to why ‘imperfect imitation’ might be the best way to start a new project. If you’re grappling with some of the basics it might be helpful to spend a bit of time with this book. It’s one I'll come back to often. |
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4. Build: The Art of Making Things Worth Making
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Building a product is one of the most fulfilling things you can do. It's also much harder than it looks – especially the first time, and especially if you come from a technical background. The technology is rarely the hard part. It's everything else – people, finances, customers, knowing when to ship…
I've been reading Build by Tony Fadell this month. Tony led the teams that built the iPod, the iPhone and the Nest thermostat – but he also had false starts and failures along the way, which makes his advice all the more useful. It's a raw, honest look at the craft of making things. I've put together some notes on four ideas that stayed with me – including why you should write your press release at the beginning of a project, not the end! |
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5. The Checklist Manifesto: Making Space for What Matters
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Scaling a business can get messy, quickly. In the early days, you can survive on speed and intuition. But as you grow, the volume of stuff that needs doing means that missing a basic, obvious step can lead to expensive failures. And that has a habit of happening right when you can least afford it – when the runway is tight and partners are impatient.
I’ve been listening to The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Atul is a surgeon who helped the WHO reduce surgical deaths by a staggering 47% using a tool most of us would think beneath expert surgeons and nurses: a simple checklist. It turns out that even the most highly trained experts – pilots, architects, engineers and surgeons – don't struggle because they lack knowledge. They fail because the volume of knowledge required today has exceeded our ability to act on it reliably. I’ve put together some notes on the bits that stayed with me, including why a good system actually protects your team’s creativity rather than stifling it. And that Boeing has a checklist factory! (And it turns out that investors who use checklists routinely outperform those who rely on ‘gut instinct’…) |
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