Ask HN: Reading materials for someone looking to get into the startup world | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Reading materials for someone looking to get into the startup world

11 pointsMrMike4 comments

I've been an entrepreneur for many years, with both successes and failures. I love it. Some of my friends who have been 9-5ers for years have asked me for recommendations on articles/blogs/books to read about taking the plunge into the startup world. Embarrassingly, I've come up blank off the top of my head, and I don't have enough time to fully vet all the stuff that pops up in Google to make sure I'm not doing them a disservice.

So, HN, I turn to you. Off the top of your head, what reading materials would you suggest for a typically non-tech person that is looking to jump into our world?

View on HN

I would actually strongly advise against reading. Vicarious entrepreneurism is a real trap.

It's better to start building or selling something. If your friends have any flair for business at all, tell them to open up a Shopify store and sell something. I actually recommended this to a friend who asked me the same question your friends asked. She's got a growing online jewellery business now. And she's keyed into the startup literature when she needs it.

It depends what they're looking for: Facts, insights or opinions and news on startups. Here's a list of items which i've always liked. To be honest you can get so much just from reading Hacker News.

Books:

  Founders at Work
  The Lean Startup
  The Four Hour Work Week
  Hackers & Painters
  Getting Real - 37 Signals/Jason Fried
  F'd Companies (Maybe not crucial but helped me think about startups needing to fulfill a need/fix a problem).

Articles:

  http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html
  http://thestartupfoundry.com/
  http://avc.com
  http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/
  http://steveblank.com/
  http://onstartups.com/

Market (Raw startup information/links):

  http://betali.st/
  http://angel.co

Interview Specific:

  http://foundation.bz
  http://mixergy.com
  http://thisweekin.com - TWI Startups or VC are both good shows.
  YC Startup School Videos (Not exactly interviews but great).

Startup News:

  http://thenextweb.com
  http://techcrunch.com
  http://readwriteweb.com
  http://venturebeat.com
  http://gigaom.com

Update: YC also has a library of information here too: http://ycombinator.com/lib.html

Thanks. I should have been more clear: The resources I was hoping to find would be the intro to entrepreneurship - the crazy up and down world of startups - type of literature.

:-D bad plug, but http://bestbooks100.com

Reply on news.ycombinator.com