Ask HN: Good books on the nuts and bolts of starting up | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Good books on the nuts and bolts of starting up

30 pointsericb21 comments

I'm looking for good books on the nuts and bolts of starting up. Ideally I prefer things written by someone who has done it a few times. I'm looking for really practical advice rather than something like Founders at Work (good, but not what I'm after).

Topics like hiring sales people, how fast to grow headcount, how to structure options, etc. Book suggestions devoted to individual topics are also welcome.

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I think things like options and any other legal is a very delicate stuffs and better be done with experts (lawyer, accountant etc).

For resources, here are few that i have in the arsenal:

Marketing: http://startup-marketing.com/ http://andrewchenblog.com/

Legal: http://www.thestartuplawyer.com/

General: http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/ http://onstartups.com/

You can ask any topic: http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?biz http://news.ycombinator.com/

Hope it helps.

Also http://startupcompanylawyer.com for legal.

I've also seen some pretty comprehensive answers to questions over at http://www.chuwe.com.

Chuwe looks pretty cool. I almost didn't click because the domain name didn't look 'serious'.

Stanford's entrepreneurship corner: book list: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/search.html?keywords=book&x=...

MIT Entrepreneurship center: book list: http://entrepreneurship.mit.edu/booklist.php

"Must have resources for startups?" at StackOverflow.com http://stackoverflow.com/questions/120272/must-have-resource...

"books for startup" at StackOverflow.com http://stackoverflow.com/questions/412677/books-for-startup

Hope it helps you. :-)

"Term Sheets & Valuations - A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets & Valuations" and "Deal Terms - The Finer Points of Venture Capital Deal Structures, Valuations, Term Sheets, Stock Options and Getting VC Deals Done (Inside the Minds)"

Both are great books. I would read Term Sheets first, but Deal Terms has a lot of great information when you are getting ready to do VC funding. I guess that is if you do VC funding.

The Four Steps to Epiphany by Steven Blank - a great manual for creating a successful, data-driven, hypothesis-based, and iterative-heavy startup.

I second this -- I think it's what the OP is looking for.

It's published by CafePress, so the fastest and cheapest option is to get it directly from them: http://www.cafepress.com/kandsranch

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0976470705

To be quite honest with you, most of these books written by people like Guy Kawasaki, Jessica Livingston, Buffet, etc., are all great, but are pretty much compilations of stories or opinions. I know what you're after, because I was after the same thing not too long ago. I just went to Borders and picked up some text books on the subjects of interest - business, marketing, etc. I'm not sure if you'll be able to find text books on 'how to structure options,' but I'm sure there's some text that Harvard MBA's and the like have read throughout their time in school that covers that topic.

I've been disappointed so far too.

For example, I read an article about a hard driving sales guy whose rule of thumb was n calls a day, and n appointments and to make them like you within the first minute.

I'm looking for books passing on this type of rule of thumb wisdom from entrepreneurs.

"Engineering Your Startup" is a GREAT guide to all of the nuts and bolts. From analyzing markets, to corporate structure and dynamics, to accounting- it covers pretty much everything.

I got this as a gift a while back and it's okay.

As a followup anything UK specific would be interesting to hear about. I've seen the various 'small business guides' which are good for some topics but not so great on others.

Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur is probably the most useful book I've yet read when it comes to startups. Topics covered: Financing maps; Cash flow and risk of early stage ventures; how much capital raise and what to spend it on; getting behind how VCs think (really informative), business plans, valuation of early stage ventures, term sheets, splitting rewards, allocating control, aligning interests (options, vesting, noncompete, IP, etc.).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071496025

I've read Founders plus a couple of other titles on the subject, but this one really stood out.

"Growing a Business" by Paul Hawken - hands down one of the best books on starting a business I have read. Don't let yourself be scared away by the release date 1988, the advice in there is timeless. Lots of the author's advice can still be found in other books on that topic. http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Business-Paul-Hawken/dp/067167...

You might also think the title sounds "treehuggerish", I found the book not to be like that at all but very inspiring and useful.

The Business of Software by Eric Sink is pretty good. http://www.amazon.com/Eric-Business-Software-Experts-Voice/d...

Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki is excellent, and covers everything from PR to marketing to legal. Some parts are advice on how to approach various aspects of starting up while other parts are more "nuts and bolts." (on average, the book stays somewhere between those two slants)

http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Check-Outsmarting-Outmanaging-... is e

Not books, but useful online articles, are the articles listed in the Hacker News Library:

http://ycombinator.com/lib.html

Guy Kawaski's Art of the Start is more practical than FaW but I'm not sure it's practical enough for you.

I liked The Entrepreneur's Bible since it provided a great foundation of all the topics. From there, then you can pick and choose. I like Art of the Start, Founders at Work as well for various reasons.

Blog suggestions on these topics would be handy, too... Also sales, marketing, accounting for topics...

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