Entrepreneurial Management Stack
Over the last few years we’ve discovered that startups are not smaller versions of large companies. The skills founders need are not covered by traditional books for MBA’s and large company managers. There are now a few books that specifically address founders needs.Alexander Osterwalder’sBusiness Model Generationis the first book that allows you to answer “What’s your business model?” intelligently and with precision. Make sure this one is on your shelf.
Osterwalders follow-on bookValue Proposition Designdescribes how to get product/market fit right. It’s another “must have” for your bookshelf.
Eric Ries was the best student I ever had. He took the Customer Development process, combined it with Agile Engineering, and actually did the first implementation in a startup. His insights about the combined Customer Development/Agile process and its implications past startups into large corporations is a sea change in thinking. His book,The Lean Startupis a “must have” for your shelf.
Ben Horowitz’sThe Hard Thing About Hard Thingsis a series essays about what CEO face in the “Build” phase – the transition from searching for a business model into a company.
It’s impossible to implement any of this if you don’t understand Agile Development.Extreme Programming Explainedby one of the pioneers of Agile, Kent Beck, is a great tutorial. If you don’t understand Values, Principles and Practices in XP it makes Customer Development almost impossible.
If you’re in a large company, The Other Side of Innovationmakes sense of how to actually insert innovation into an execution organization. If you’re starting a medical device companyBiodesign:The Process of Innovating Medical Technologiesis a must have. It has a great customer discovery process.
