The best entrepreneurship books

The best entrepreneurship books for founders testing an idea are The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. Small business owners who are stuck doing every job themselves should read The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber, and founders leading a company through hard times will get the most from The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.

How we picked

These picks were researched from public information: publisher catalogue pages, Open Library and Wikipedia records, and published reviews such as those in Publishers Weekly. Nobody at Sales Loves Marketing read the books for this update. We kept the books from the original list that still hold up for founders, added proven classics on testing ideas, running a company and finding customers, and added two well-regarded books from 2022 and 2024. For each book we checked the author, the year it first came out and the current edition.

1. The Lean Startup

The Lean Startup by entrepreneur Eric Ries was published by Crown Business in 2011. It sets out a way to build a new company under uncertainty: release a minimum viable product, learn from how real users respond, and adjust quickly instead of following a long business plan. It borrows from lean manufacturing and agile software development.

It suits first-time founders and teams launching new products inside larger companies. Our guide to the Lean Startup methodology summarizes the method.

It debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover advice in 2011. The publisher reports more than one million copies sold and translations into more than 30 languages.

2. The Mom Test

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick is a short, self-published handbook on customer conversations. Its subtitle sums it up: how to talk to customers and learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you. It covers avoiding polite but useless feedback, writing outreach that gets people to talk, and spotting whether a prospect will really buy.

It suits founders before and just after launch, and anyone running customer discovery or early sales calls. It pairs well with The Lean Startup: one explains why to learn from customers, the other how to ask.

Open Library lists the CreateSpace paperback from 2014 at 135 pages. It is also sold as an ebook and audiobook, with translations into several languages.

3. The E-Myth Revisited

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber was published by HarperBusiness in 1995. It reworks Gerber's 1986 book The E-Myth. It explains how a business grows from startup to maturity, shows how franchise-style systems can work in any business, and separates working on a company from working in it.

It suits owners of service businesses, agencies and small firms who have become the bottleneck in their own company. It is on the list for its focus on turning a job you own into a business that runs on systems.

HarperCollins and its HarperBusiness imprint have reissued it several times since 1995, in print and audio.

4. The Hard Thing About Hard Things

The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz was published by Harper Business in 2014. Horowitz co-founded Loudcloud in 1999, turned it into the software company Opsware, which Hewlett-Packard bought in 2007 for $1.6 billion, and then co-founded the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz in 2009. The book combines his years as CEO with management advice from his blog.

It suits founders and CEOs of growing companies, especially in a crisis. The Publishers Weekly review found it most useful on cutting office politics and on helping startup executives grow into larger roles, and at its best when Horowitz is candid about his own fears. The same review criticized its heavy war metaphors.

Horowitz followed it with What You Do Is Who You Are, a 2019 book on company culture.

5. Zero to One

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters was published by Crown Business on 16 September 2014. It grew out of Masters' notes from Thiel's startup class at Stanford in 2012. Its core idea is that real progress comes from creating something new, going from zero to one, rather than copying what exists, and that the most valuable companies build a form of monopoly.

It suits founders deciding what to build and how to stand out from competitors. Reviews are split. The Atlantic's Derek Thompson praised it highly, while Publishers Weekly found it too abstract to help aspiring founders, and Vox argued that some of its advice is more conventional than it claims.

The 2014 Crown Business edition runs 224 pages.

6. Traction

Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg, founder and CEO of the search engine DuckDuckGo, and Justin Mares was published by Portfolio on 6 October 2015. It covers 19 channels for winning customers and a three-step method, called Bullseye, for choosing the few that fit your business.

It suits founders and early marketers who have a product but no reliable way to get customers. It is the book on this list about finding customers and growth rather than product or mindset.

The 2015 Portfolio edition runs 240 pages in hardcover and is also available as an ebook.

7. Build

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell was published by Harper Business on 3 May 2022. Fadell led the iPod team at Apple, co-created the iPhone and co-founded Nest, which Google bought in 2014. The book collects his experience as advice on building a career, products, teams and a business, including lessons from the failure of his early-1990s startup General Magic.

It suits people early in a tech career, product managers and first-time founders building a product. It was added as a well-regarded newer book from someone who has built products at scale. It became a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller.

The 2022 Harper Business edition is available in hardcover, ebook and audio.

8. Million Dollar Weekend

Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours by Noah Kagan, with Tahl Raz, was published by Portfolio on 30 January 2024. Kagan is the founder and CEO of AppSumo and was an early employee at Facebook and Mint. The book sets out a method for testing a business idea over a single weekend by getting real customers to pay, plus advice on handling the fear of starting.

It suits would-be founders and side-project builders who keep planning instead of launching. It was added because it is a recent, practical guide to validating an idea with paying customers, which complements The Mom Test.

The 2024 hardcover runs 240 pages, with an audiobook read by Kagan.

9. The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss was first published by Crown in 2007. It argues against postponing life until retirement and shows how to cut low-value work, outsource tasks to virtual assistants and work in short bursts with frequent breaks.

It suits solo founders and freelancers who want to design a business around their time. Wikipedia reports that it spent four years on the New York Times bestseller list and was translated into 40 languages. Critics, including Wired, found the writing formulaic and many ideas pushed to extremes.

The current edition is the expanded and updated version from Harmony, published in December 2009 with more than 100 new pages and reader case studies.

10. Tools of Titans

Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Timothy Ferriss was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2016. It turns Ferriss's interviews with more than 100 high performers, many of them from his podcast, into their tactics, routines and habits, with a foreword by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It suits founders who like to dip into a book rather than read it straight through. It debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

The 2016 edition is a large book of 736 pages.

11. The Obstacle Is the Way

The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday was first published by Portfolio in 2014. It applies Stoic philosophy to setbacks, showing how people throughout history turned problems into opportunities.

It suits founders who need a way to think about pressure and failure, rather than a business method. It is kept from the original list; its publisher credits it with bringing Stoicism to a wide modern audience.

Portfolio published an expanded 10th anniversary edition on 1 October 2024, with a new introduction and new stories.

Where to go next

For the skills founders need most after the idea, see our lists of the best books about selling and the best marketing books, or the best sales books of all time. To manage your own time, read our productivity hacks for entrepreneurs and the best productivity books.