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25 Must Read Books for Start-up Owners

The thought of starting your own business can seem daunting and risky, but should you let that hold you back from following your dreams? There is little reward in a life without risk. So, if you’ve got a great idea, or have just started your own business venture, here’s 25 books that could propel your journey as a start-up owner!

How I Quit Google to Sell Samosas by Munaf Kapadia with Zahabia Rajkotwala

Packed with ‘samosa gyan’ gathered along the way, How I Quit Google To Sell Samosas inspires you to dream big (even in a pandemic!) and find the courage to keep moving. Whether you succeed or fail.

Get your copy here!

Startup Compass by Ujwal KalraShobhit Shubhankar

The idea of ‘starting up’ has never been as much in vogue as it is today. Filled with ambition, inspired by homegrown heroes, a new breed of entrepreneurs is rising in India. This book is based on the ‘How to Start a Startup’ series at IIM Ahmedabad where over a series of lectures, successful entrepreneurs spoke of their success and failure across key stages of the startup lifecycle.

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48-Hour Start-Up by Fraser Doherty 

Almost everyone dreams of starting their own business but very few do. But what if it only had to be a decision of a weekend and it didn’t cost a fortune? In the 48- Hour-Start-Up, Fraser Doherty uses his experience building a multi-million dollar company to attempt an experiment; starting with a blank piece of paper, he sets out to start a profitable new business over a weekend, without relying on any technical ability whatsoever. He succeeds and you can, too.

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Flight of the Unicorns by Soum Paul 

In Flight of the Unicorns, Soum Paul takes a deep dive into the trajectory of Indian startups in the recent past and explores the trials and tribulations of starting up. Through the voices of many innovators, entrepreneurs and investors, he studies the patterns in successes and parallels from other emerging markets. He builds on theories around what works and what doesn’t and paints a vision for the future of startups in this part of the world.

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Awakening the Entrepreneur Within by Michael E. Gerber

A highly in-demand keynote speaker whose company boasts over 52,000 business clients in 145 countries, Michael Gerber is THE name in small business—and now he demonstrates “How Ordinary People Can Create Extraordinary Companies.” Making your dreams real is the first step to creating a successful business—and Gerber’s Awakening the Entrepreneur Within provides the key.

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Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively by Reid HoffmanChris Yeh 

Featuring case studies from numerous prominent tech businesses such as AirBnB and WeChat, this book offers a specific set of practices for catalyzing and managing dizzying growth in bourgeoning start-ups. Prioritizing speed over efficiency in an environment of uncertainty, Blitzscaling illustrates how businesses can accelerate to the stage in a company’s life cycle where the most value is generated.

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Start Up Your Restaurant by Jayanth NarayananPriya Bala 

Choosing a smart idea, funding and finance kicking, the perfect location, setting up space, hiring the right people, getting licenses, working with vendors, and ensuring quality control launching and marketing – all this and more! Packed with great tips and fun to read, this step-by-step guide from experts Jayanth Narayanan and Priya Bala will help you navigate the restaurant business with ease and efficiency.

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Freedom to Fail by Shabnam Aggarwal 

Shabnam Aggarwal gives us a peek into the world of start-ups in India. Her personal journey gives us an insight into dealing with failure, warning us of the challenges of starting a business, and helping us learn from her experience. Weaving each chapter into a powerful lesson in overcoming expectations, fear, and self-doubt, she shows us why failure is important, even imperative, in order to ultimately succeed. And the best lesson she learned: You haven’t failed until you stop trying.

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Start-Up Your Fashion Label by Aarthi Gunnupuri 

Learn the basics of creating and executing a business plan, exhibiting your designs in big retail chains, setting up an e-commerce store, and, finally, participating in a fashion week. Study the success stories of masters like J.J. Valaya and Anita Dongre. With the right design ideas, passion and perseverance, you can learn how to be right under the spotlight.

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The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

Over the years, the investment market has been following the teachings and strategies of Graham for growth and development. In the book, Graham has explained various principles and strategies for investing safely and successfully without taking bigger risks. Modern-day investors still continue to use his proven and well-executed techniques for value investment.

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Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella 

Microsoft CEO tells the inside story of the Companies continuing transformation while tracing his own journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant changes of the digital era and offering his vision for the coming wave of intelligent technologies.

Hit Refresh is about individual change, the transformation happening inside Microsoft, and the arrival of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology humankind has experienced – including artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing.

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What You Do Is Who You Are by Ben Horowitz 

Ben Horowitz, a leading venture capitalist, modern management expert, and new York Times bestselling author, combines lessons both from history and modern Organisational practice with practical and often surprising advice to help executives build cultures that can weather both good and bad times. In what you do is who you are, Ben Horowitz, bestselling author of the hard thing about hard things, turns his attention to a question crucial to every organization: how do you create and sustain the culture you want?

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Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt 

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything is an interesting book that combines the theories of economics with everyday issues and topics and presents a series of fascinating exercises that are engaging. Written by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt, this book provides a unique take on various things that we face every day.

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Around the Corner to Around the World by Robert Rosenberg 

Learn twelve key lessons from dunkin’ donuts’ former CEO Robert Rosenberg that offer critical insights and a unique, 360-degree perspective to business leaders and managers on building one of the world’s most recognized brands.

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The Marvel Studios Story by Stephanie Wetzel Charlie Wetzel

What can you learn from the world’s most successful companies? The Marvel Studios Story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and daily business practices that enabled a struggling comic book publisher to parlay the power of myth and storytelling to become one of history’s most successful movie studios.

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The Sephora Story by Mary Curran-Hackett 

What can you learn from the most successful companies in the world? The Sephora Story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and daily business practices that turned the makeup retailer into a paradise for makeup enthusiasts everywhere.

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Superfreakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner Steven D. Levitt

The international bestselling Freakquel to Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics, this book sees them looking deeper, questioning harder and uncovering even more hidden truths about our world, from global cooling to patriotic prostitutes, drunk walking to why suicide bombers should buy life insurance.

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Digital Goddess by Victoria R. Montgomery Brown

With women leading only twenty-four Fortune 500 companies, female founders receiving only 2.2 percent of US venture capital, and the continued presence of sexual harassment and double standards, the gender gap continues to hinder the advancement of women in the professional world.

In Digital Goddess, Montgomery-Brown—founder of Big Think, a collection of experts across all fields and disciplines that are either at the top of their field or disrupting it, shares her story in an entertaining and educational light.

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The Domino’s Story by Marcia Layton Turner 

Imagine if you were there, taking notes, as a small pizza Joint became one of the most successful restaurants in the world. The Domino’s story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and business practices that made the iconic pizza chain the innovative restaurant and e-commerce leader it is today.

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The Microsoft Story by Dan Good

Imagine if you could see the playbook that returned a struggling tech empire to the top of the tech leader Board. The Microsoft story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and daily business practices that enabled the tech company to once again become a leading tech innovator.

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The Success Principles by Jack Canfield 

The Success Principles is a motivational piece of literature. The author of this book tries to uncover some of the greatest secrets behind success. offering solutions to problems with the help of rules that help one achieve success in life, this book can be read a wide range of people.

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Winning Now Winning Later by David M Cote 

Offering ten essential principles for winning both today and tomorrow, this book will help readers to spot practices that seem attractive in the short term but will cost the company in the future determine where and how to invest in growth for maximum impact sustain both short-term performance and long-term investments even in challenging times. Winning Now, Winning Later is a go-to guide for leaders everywhere who seek to finally transcend short-termism’s daily grind and leave an enduring legacy of success.

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Crushing It! by Gary Vaynerchuk 

In Crushing It, Gary explains why that’s even more true today, offering his unique perspective on what has changed and what principles remain timeless. He also shares stories from other entrepreneurs who have grown wealthier and not just financially than they ever imagined possible by following Crush It principles.

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The Hard Thing About Hard Thing by Ben Horowitz

Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.

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Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk 

In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand.

Get your copy now!

Your Brain at Work by David Rock

In Your Brain at Work, David Rock takes readers inside the heads—literally—of a modern two-career couple as they mentally process their workday to reveal how we can better organize, prioritize, remember, and process our daily lives.

Get your copy now!

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