Founder

66 titles in this library.

Part I — Entrepreneurial Foundations

• Disciplined Entrepreneurship Bill Aulet Aulet provides a highly structured, step-by-step approach to building a startup, beginning with market segmentation and proceeding through customer definition, value creation, economics, product development, and…
• The E-Myth Revisited Michael E. Gerber Although written primarily for small-business owners rather than venture-backed technology founders, this is one of the clearest books on the danger of building a company that…
• The Four Steps to the Epiphany Steve Blank This is the original source of Blank’s Customer Development methodology. It is less polished and less accessible than The Startup Owner’s Manual, but it provides the…
• The Lean Startup Eric Ries This is one of the most influential books in modern entrepreneurship and remains a useful introduction to validated learning, minimum viable products, Build-Measure-Learn cycles, innovation accounting,…
• The Startup Owner’s Manual Steve Blank and Bob Dorf This is more detailed and operational than The Lean Startup. It functions almost as a textbook for Customer Development and provides concrete guidance for testing customer,…
• Zero to One Peter Thiel with Blake Masters This is a provocative strategy book rather than a complete startup manual. Its discussions of monopoly, differentiation, contrarian insight, technology, distribution, and founder conviction stimulate valuable…

Part II — Customer and Problem Discovery

• Competing Against Luck Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan This is the most accessible full treatment of Jobs to Be Done theory. Its cases help readers understand that customers choose products to make progress under…
• Continuous Discovery Habits Teresa Torres This is one of the strongest books on making discovery a continuing operating practice rather than a one-time prelaunch exercise. Its Opportunity Solution Tree is particularly…
• Lean Customer Development Cindy Alvarez Alvarez provides practical guidance for conducting customer discovery inside both startups and established companies. The book is especially good at translating broad Lean Startup principles into…
• Talking to Humans Giff Constable This is a concise and accessible field guide to customer discovery. It lacks the depth of Blank or Fitzpatrick, but it is an excellent introduction for…
• The Jobs to Be Done Playbook Jim Kalbach This is a practical complement to Christensen’s more conceptual work. It combines Jobs to Be Done with customer interviews, journey mapping, value propositions, and innovation methods.…
• The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick This is one of the shortest and most practically useful books on customer interviews. It explains why customers offer compliments and speculative encouragement, and how founders…

Part III — Business Models and Experimentation

• Business Model Generation Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur This book introduced the Business Model Canvas to a broad audience. Its visual structure is highly useful for team discussion and for making assumptions visible. Its…
• Running Lean Ash Maurya Maurya offers a concise startup process centered on the Lean Canvas, riskiest assumptions, problem-solution fit, and iterative testing. It is highly practical, although the compressed canvas…
• Sprint Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, and Braden Kowitz The book presents a five-day process developed at Google Ventures for moving from a major question to a realistic prototype and customer test. It is engaging…
• Testing Business Ideas David J. Bland and Alexander Osterwalder This is one of the most useful practical reference books for designing startup experiments. It contains a broad library of tests organized around assumptions, evidence, cost,…
• Value Proposition Design Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, and Alan Smith This is a practical visual guide to matching customer jobs, pains, and gains with products and services. It helps founders move beyond feature descriptions. The terminology…

Part IV — Product Discovery and Development

• Empowered Marty Cagan and Chris Jones This book addresses how leaders create product teams capable of solving problems rather than merely completing assignments. It is less relevant to a founder with two…
• Escaping the Build Trap Melissa Perri Perri explains how organizations become focused on delivering features rather than producing customer and business outcomes. The book is especially valuable for startups that have gained…
• Inspired Marty Cagan This is a leading book on modern technology-product management. Cagan distinguishes empowered product teams from feature factories and emphasizes the risks of value, usability, feasibility, and…
• Lean Analytics Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz This book helps founders identify the metric that matters most at each stage and business model. Some examples and platform references are dated, but the distinctions…
• The Lean Product Playbook Dan Olsen Olsen provides one of the clearest step-by-step frameworks linking target customers, underserved needs, value propositions, feature sets, user experience, and product-market fit. The process is particularly…

Part V — Positioning, Marketing, and Growth

• Building a StoryBrand Donald Miller Miller provides an accessible framework for making the customer the hero and the company the guide. It is particularly helpful for founders whose websites and pitches…
• Crossing the Chasm Geoffrey A. Moore This remains a foundational book for technology companies attempting to move from visionary early adopters to pragmatic mainstream customers. Some examples are dated, but the chasm,…
• Hacking Growth Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown This is a useful guide to cross-functional, experiment-driven growth after a company has established meaningful customer value. It is less useful when applied prematurely; growth tactics…
• Made to Stick Chip Heath and Dan Heath This is a strong guide to communicating ideas so that they are understood and remembered. It is useful for founder storytelling, sales, fundraising, employee communication, and…
• Obviously Awesome April Dunford This is one of the most practical books on positioning, particularly for B2B technology. Dunford explains how customers compare products with alternatives and why founders should…
• Traction Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares The book’s Bullseye Framework encourages founders to test multiple customer-acquisition channels rather than assuming the familiar one will work. Its channel descriptions are useful, although tactical…

Part VI — Sales, Partnerships, and Negotiation

• Founding Sales Peter Kazanjy This is one of the most useful books for technical or product-oriented founders who must learn founder-led B2B sales. It addresses the stage before a repeatable…
• Getting to Yes Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton This remains one of the clearest introductions to principled negotiation. It is less tactical than Never Split the Difference but offers a stronger conceptual foundation for…
• Influence Robert B. Cialdini This is a foundational work on psychological principles that affect persuasion, including reciprocity, commitment, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity, and unity. It is valuable for sales,…
• Never Split the Difference Chris Voss with Tahl Raz This is an engaging introduction to tactical empathy, calibrated questions, labeling, mirroring, and negotiation under emotional pressure. Its hostage-negotiation stories make it memorable, but founders should…
• The Challenger Sale Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson The book argues that strong B2B sellers teach customers something valuable, tailor the message, and constructively guide the buying process. It is particularly useful for complex…

Part VII — Finance, Fundraising, and Venture Capital

• Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs Karen Berman and Joe Knight, with John Case This is an excellent introduction for founders who do not come from accounting or finance. It explains what financial statements show, where estimates and judgment enter…
• Secrets of Sand Hill Road Scott Kupor Kupor provides a clear explanation of venture capital from the perspective of an experienced venture-firm managing partner. It is broader and more narrative than Venture Deals,…
• Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! Greg Crabtree Crabtree translates small-business financial management into direct operating rules concerning labor productivity, profitability, cash, taxes, and owner compensation. It is particularly valuable for bootstrapped companies and…
• The Entrepreneurial Bible to Venture Capital Andrew Romans This provides a broad overview of venture financing, angel investing, term sheets, pitching, due diligence, and exits. It is less focused and polished than Feld or…
• Venture Deals Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson This is a practical guide to venture-capital term sheets, economics, control, negotiation, and the financing process. It is essential for founders considering institutional venture capital. It…

Part VIII — Leadership, Teams, and Culture

• High Output Management Andrew S. Grove Grove provides an operating manual for managers covering leverage, meetings, performance, planning, organizational design, training, and managerial output. Some examples come from an earlier industrial and…
• Radical Candor Kim Scott Scott presents a useful model of caring personally while challenging directly. It is especially valuable for founders who either avoid difficult conversations or deliver criticism without…
• The Culture Code Daniel Coyle Coyle examines how high-performing groups create belonging, vulnerability, trust, and shared purpose. The stories make the book engaging, although some examples are more illustrative than scientifically…
• The Fearless Organization Amy C. Edmondson This is the leading practical treatment of psychological safety in organizations. It is especially relevant to startups because employees must surface bad news, challenge founder assumptions,…
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni Written as a business fable, this is an accessible introduction to team trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. The model is simple and memorable, though real…
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things Ben Horowitz Horowitz addresses the painful, ambiguous decisions that conventional management books often avoid: layoffs, executive failures, organizational politics, founder psychology, and leadership when no attractive answer exists.…

Part IX — Scaling and Operating the Company

• 7 Powers Hamilton Helmer Helmer offers a rigorous framework for understanding durable competitive advantage through scale economies, network economies, counter-positioning, switching costs, branding, cornered resources, and process power. It is…
• Good Strategy/Bad Strategy Richard Rumelt This is one of the strongest books on the difference between strategy and aspiration. Rumelt argues that real strategy includes a diagnosis, guiding policy, and coherent…
• Measure What Matters John Doerr This popularized Objectives and Key Results for a broad business audience. It provides useful examples from technology companies and nonprofits. OKRs can improve focus, but poorly…
• Scaling Up Verne Harnish Harnish offers an integrated operating framework centered on people, strategy, execution, and cash. The tools are practical for growing businesses but can create unnecessary bureaucracy if…
• The High Growth Handbook Elad Gil This is a practical reference for founders moving from early product-market fit into organizational scale. It covers executive hiring, boards, finance, international growth, mergers, and founder…
• The Innovator’s Dilemma Clayton M. Christensen This is a foundational explanation of why well-managed incumbent companies can fail when disruptive technologies begin in unattractive or low-margin markets. Some academic debates surround aspects…

Part X — Failure, Resilience, Ethics, and Judgment

• Antifragile Nassim Nicholas Taleb This develops the idea that some systems do more than resist volatility; they improve from stress and variation. The concept is powerful, though the book ranges…
• Bad Blood John Carreyrou This investigative account of Theranos is essential reading on governance, secrecy, technical claims, investor enthusiasm, board responsibility, employee intimidation, and the human consequences of placing narrative…
• Right Kind of Wrong Amy C. Edmondson Edmondson distinguishes intelligent failures in genuinely uncertain territory from preventable failures caused by carelessness or failure to use existing knowledge. The distinction is highly relevant to…
• The Black Swan Nassim Nicholas Taleb Taleb challenges the reliability of prediction in environments shaped by rare, consequential events. His style is intentionally combative, and readers may find it repetitive, but the…
• The Founder’s Dilemmas Noam Wasserman Based on extensive research, this book examines co-founder selection, equity, control, hiring, relationships, and the tradeoff between wealth and control. It is among the most important…
• Thinking, Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman This is a broad and demanding book on judgment, heuristics, bias, and decision-making. It is not a startup manual, and some of the research discussed has…

Part XI — Specialized Paths

• Platform Revolution Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul Choudary This provides a structured introduction to platform business models, network effects, governance, openness, monetization, and ecosystem design. It is more conceptual than tactical, but useful for…
• Small Giants Bo Burlingham This examines companies that chose excellence, culture, community, craft, employee relationships, or founder control over maximum scale. It is an important corrective to the assumption that…
• The Cold Start Problem Andrew Chen This is a useful book for marketplaces, communities, social products, and network-effect businesses. Chen explains why network products struggle before they achieve sufficient density and how…
• The Power of Broke Daymond John with Daniel Paisner This is a motivational collection of stories about entrepreneurs who used limited resources to force creativity, focus, and resourcefulness. It is inspiring and accessible, though less…

Part XII — Mentoring, Inquiry, and Practical Wisdom

• Helping Edgar H. Schein Schein examines why attempts to help often fail because the helper acts before understanding what kind of help is needed. The book is particularly valuable for…
• Humble Inquiry Edgar H. Schein This short book is highly relevant to VMT mentoring. Schein distinguishes genuine curiosity from questions designed to lead, test, or display expertise. It is concise but…
• Practical Wisdom Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe This book examines the judgment required to apply rules, experience, ethics, and human understanding in circumstances too complex for formulas. It speaks directly to the deeper…
• The Coaching Habit Michael Bungay Stanier This is a practical, highly accessible book built around seven coaching questions. It is less nuanced than Schein but easy to apply immediately in mentoring and…
• The Socratic Method Ward Farnsworth Farnsworth offers a clear contemporary exploration of Socratic questioning and how disciplined dialogue exposes definitions, assumptions, contradictions, and consequences. It is particularly valuable for mentors who…
• The Trusted Advisor David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford Although written for professional advisors, this is useful for mentors because it examines credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation. VMT’s altruistic model creates unusually favorable conditions for…