The Smart Startup

Go Big or Go Homeby Wil Schroter

This is one of the best entrepreneurial books to come out in years. If you are planning on launching an online business, this is the book for you. No one explains how scaling works better than Wil. Not only does he explain it, but he shows you how to integrate it into your business model.

Zero to IPO by David Smith

The essential manual for anyone looking at starting a fast growth company financed with other people's money. This manual does the best job I have ever seen of explaining the four possible outcomes for such a company. It uses a dramatic graphic called "Startup Island" to enable you to grasp the big picture. Startup Island has three peaks in descending order of elevation (i.e., valuation): IPO, cashflow sale, and asset sale. The fourth possible outcome is landing in the "Shutdown Sea". (No, investor-backed companies will not be allowed to just limp along indefinitely.)

If you will be pitching venture capitalists and angel investors, you'd better read this first. It lays out a detailed roadmap for you to follow depending on which of the three peaks you are aiming for.

Check out this pdf with Zero-to-IPO's table of contents to appreciate the level of detail the book goes into. This 412 page manual is a must-have if you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of potential investors.

Finding Fertile Ground: Identifying Extraordinary Opportunities for New Ventures by Scott A Shane

If you are still looking for an opportunity, this book will show you how to think like a grizzled old veteran of startups with a nose for the optimal opportunity.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

This book saved my life! Long ago I used to be a bicycle road racer. There's an adage in bicycle racing that goes like this, "Out of sight out of mind". It's something to be chanted like a mantra on breakaways because it reminds you that you need to keep pushing yourself all-out until you get to the point where you are always one curve or corner ahead of your pursuers. When they can no longer see you, they tend to ease off on trying to reel you in. Well that adage has applied to most of my business life as well. If a project wasn't represented by an eyesore pile of papers on my office floor, it didn't exist as far as my brain was concerned. This resulted in very messy offices. I liked to call it my "Bladerunner look" but no one was buying it. (Quick story: A few years ago, I was taking one of my companies public and had to interview a number of lawyers specializing in securities law to work on our IPO. The fourth or fifth lawyer used my filing system: stacks of papers piled high on the floor. I went with him because he was a kindred spirit.)

To cut to the chase, after trying every personal management system out there from Day-timers to Palm PDAs in an effort to become both efficient and organized, this little paperback finally did it for me. All it takes to experience a dramatic shift is a reading of the book and a two-day clean-up and reorganization of your current system.

If you are committing to a startup, you need this book. It will show you how to get organized, effective, and most importantly, how to free up your mind for creative thinking instead of being cluttered with the equivalent of mental Post-it notes trying to remember what's in each stack of papers.