30 books every young entrepreneur should read

Becoming an entrepreneur for the first time requires conditioning yourself to a set of attitudes, skills and knowledge you've never encountered anywhere else before. You've got to be prepared to learn faster than any time in your life. However, being prepared for this 'knowledge hit' hinders many young entrepreneurs in taking their $bn ambitions to actually realizing them.

For those of you that are starting your entrepreneurial careers, you'll find this list inspiring, immersive and essential reading, even providing comfort for those inevitable moments where everyone tells you that you can't succeed. Here are 30 books I've read, which i think you should too.

Attitude

These books will help you to get inspired, think big and refuse to back down when people say you can't succeed.

• The Google Story ( The story behind the greatest start up in history)
• Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure (An emotional roller coaster through the founding of Go computer. How do u deal with technology which is too early for its market? Read this first)
• High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars (The fly-on-the wall account of founding, growing and eventually selling Frontpage to Microsoft)
  
• The Nudist on the Late Shift: And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley (The story of silicon valley gold rush in 1999. Get into the mentality of an amazing time in history)
• EBoys: The True Story of the Six Tall Men Who Backed EBay, Webvan and Other Billion-dollar Start-ups (An insight into silicon valley during the boom, set around the founding of Benchmark capital and all the companies they funded)
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days (Interviews with some of the foremost founders of technology startups. Great starts are Max Levchin of Paypal and James Hong of HotOrNot.)
• Boo Hoo: A Dot Com Story (Boo.com received $160m venture capital in 1999. The story of the most prominent European dot com flameout ever)
• Against the Odds: An Autobiography (James Dyson never gave up trying to make the perfect product. The insight into his struggle to what he achieved is inspirational.)
• The Perfect Store: Inside EBay (The story of eBay, from Pierre Omidyar's bedroom to where it is now)
• Icon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business (The unofficial biography of Steve Jobs. An unique insight into his dark and disturbing side)
• Losing My Virginity: The Autobiography (The autobiography of Richard Branson. Just how did he grow his empire from starting with a humble magazine ?)

Skills

Negotiation, networking, getting users, dealing with people and executing upon your plans, these books will help you avoid taking investor money and just burning it.

• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity (How do you execute if you can't prioritise. David Allen's book will change your life)
• How to Win Friends and Influence People (Mediating a dispute with a cofounder, or trying to impress an investor for the first time. Dale Carnegie has all the answers)
• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement with out Giving In: The Secret to Successful Negotiation (Negotiating for your first serious round of finance, or with a supplier can be make or break. This book will mean you'll know how to squeeze out those extra details)
• Buzzmarketing: Get People to Talk About Your Stuff (Knowing how to build buzz is invaluable. Learn from the man who decided he would rename a town halfway Oregon to half.com Oregon just to build buzz. Incredible reading)
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (The title says it all. Do what you can to become more effective)
• Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time (Networking is an art. Know how to build, maintain and leverage your network. Business is all about who you know as well as what, so read this)
• The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (The concise guide to making it happen. Everything from fundraising, hiring, schmoozing, to getting your pitch right - with a dose of oomph)
• The Effective Executive (Execution starts with you. Peter Drucker nails down how to be that bit more effective)
• How to Be a Complete and Utter Failure in Life, Work and Everything: 39 1/2 steps to lasting underachievement (The only way to success is to know how to fail. This book gives you enough fodder to never fail again)
• Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (This book is the best book on making a usable website i've read. Start pleasing your users. Good startups are distinguished by good design. Build your advantage)

Knowledge

Starting a technology company is underpinned by some fundamental facts. These range from understanding long tail economics, how to push something to tipping point or what disruptive technology actually means. Read these or sink fast as others conquer.

• The Long Tail: How Endless Choice Is Creating Unlimited Demand (There is 80% of the market you aren't thinking about. This is the long tail)
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (How do ideas, concepts or messages spread through network and reach mass popularity. Learn about the tipping point)
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (Getting ideas to have lasting power is tricky. This book will change your perspective on marketing)
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (Taleb argues that rare events, can to be some extent be foreseen. Getting to that series A isn't so random after all)
• Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (This will change your view on the serendipity behind life-changing events)
• The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth (This book takes the concept of disruptive innovation and summarises into a series of characterisable steps)
• The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (This book is a classic, illustrating the term disruptive innovation with studies of where disruptive technologies have changed markets. Essential for the budding Niklas Zennstrom)
• Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Technology Products to Mainstream Customers (How to bring technology from your early adopters into the mainstream? This book created those definitions)
• The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few (How can the average knowledge of a million people be more correct than an expert. With the Internet growing how it is, the wisdom of crowds could be your application's next big weapon)

So what books do you think should in here? Reply in the comments.

Startup Review: Townster

Townster is a German startup based in Cologne that is all about helping its users search locally. Currently the service offers the ability to search for people, places, events, groups, or lists. While it is still only available in German, they plan to move stateside next year. The space shown below hold 10 employees and is much larger than shown in the photos; with another 20 employees expected in the next year, it will definitely be needed.

I’ve been noticing that more companies seem to be showing their dogs off to us. Here at Office Snapshots, we may not have a dog, but we do have a dilophosaurus. Sure it spits poison in our eyes, but their eggs make great omelettes.

Startup Review: Adpinion

Adpinion lets users tell what they want to see.

That means brands don't have to guess the consumer's interests based on what websites they visit; Adpinion can advertise diapers to stay-at-home dads while they're reading ESPN. Better still, Adpinion does this without logging any personal information, for any period of time.

Here's how it works:

• You have an ad.
• adpinion help you place your ad into it's system, where related people and ads group together.
• Feedback from users helps to move the ad into more relevant groups.
• When a user goes to a website within adpinion network, it'll display an ad that suits their interests.[ If a user hasn't given feedback yet, we choose based on the likes of other readers of that site.]

WOW! that's pretty interesting!

Anyways, pretty promising output from Y-Combinator workshop, waiting for my beta invitation. More later.

Ratatouille

Startup Review: NowPos

We believe that you are a celebrity in your own status on NowPos. So tell us and the world more about yourself.

Its been a while I'm hearing about NOWPOS (short for Now Possible), a Hyderabad-based technology start-up.

I'm trying to test it.

Once logged on to NowPos, which is currently free, one can send and receive voicemail; users need to have a headphone with speaker facility to do so. Those who do not want to listen to advertisements, which currently constitute the revenue stream, might have to pay an annual fee. The structure is being worked out.

Frost & Sullivan has chosen NowPos (Now Possible) as one of the 20 top broadband innovations in Asia Pacific, describing it as the "coolest bridge in the Internet space." NowPos, which has just 20+ employees.

Crunched or Clone? Michael Arrington got a story. Its Teleflip

Whats your call people?

I like that attitude!

Startup Review: Daily Dump

A new start-up in Bangalore, India, hopes to arm consumers with products and services to empower them toward a simple solution for reducing landfill waste: composting. The Daily Dump offers an array of decorative composting containers that can be used in the home to manage organic household waste and convert it to useful high-quality compost. What's more, they offer a full range of service plans for customers wary of braving the ordeal on their own.

Composting pots and vessels made of biodegradable terracotta in a variety of shapes and sizes can be purchased on the website, which features a guide to help customers choose which is right for their needs. Rakes, spoons, spatulas and other supplies are also available. The website offers extensive information and tips, such as what items can and can't compost. Consumers who lack the time or desire to care for their composting pot can select a weekly, fortnightly or monthly service plan, with a Daily Dump ‘servicewalla’ dropping by to take care of maintenance: cleaning pots, adding dry leaves and stirring the compost. Those who don’t mind doing their own maintenance can opt out of the service plan and call Daily Dump when they have an issue that needs to be addressed by a professional.

The Daily Dump currently is limited to small residential composting, but the company has big plans for expanding its operations to include composting products for businesses and larger homes, solutions for dealing with inorganic waste and further ventures to address larger urban environmental issues. In the meantime, they hope to inspire others to invest in composting—and, as such, are not likely to mind much if copycat companies begin popping up in other parts of the globe, making it easy for them to be green.

Should You Raise Venture Capital, And When?

Put that coffee down!

Put that coffee down! One of my colleagues yelled at me. "You drink so-much of coffee and smokes alot"!

Trust me people, whenever I hear "Put that coffee down" I remember 1992 Hollywood flick Glengarry Glen Ross where Mr. Blake yells at Laveen.

PUT THAT COFFEE DOWN! Coffee is for closers...

So where were we? Coffee + Cig? Nope, but everybody's blaming Cig / Espresso for my lost look and they are really disturbed with my slim looks.

Why don't you take care of yourself Kris? Grow some muscles.

I used to answer them with smiles. Then used to say " Toughness is the quality of mind, nothing to do with muscles" then I fedup!

Today some 15 guys commented on my new looks & shirt and said, "Mannn, try to grow some muscles"!

Enough is enough, I need fix this. "Listen genttlemen" I said

" My job is to make long term and short term strategies for my firm. I research a lot, read a lot. I spend fucking 15 hours a day in office ( not because I'm not productive in 8hrs - just for the sake of it, I love my corner office) All i need to do is grow under eye dark circles, not my underarm muscles... & I want to get into Entreprunership then Venture capital NOT Gladrags Model or a male hooker. And about the sex part you mentioned, No gal ever complained or even doubted on my stamina or power of real muscles" !

Since thats the case thesedays, I think I'm sexy enough to smoke the hardest Marlboro available in town and drink atleast 10 Espressos a day.

Well, Sign Sealed Delivered! Need more? I asked! Well, u guessed it!

Web 2.0 Long / Short

Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic, about the best and worst parts of Web 2.0.