The Startup Owners Manual by Steve Blank and Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

>First, read Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people.”

Already done. I am currently reading "7 Habits of Highly Effective People". How to Win Friends majorly influenced me already.

Do you believe the methods explained in How to Win Friends are sufficient? They have absolutely helped already but I am not sure if it is just a matter continuing to apply or if there is another that could help level me up more.

EDIT: Also on the reading list is Purple Cow by Seth Godin. I've heard good things about it and the first ~20 pages were pretty good.

* Getting Real - 37signals

* Don't make me think! - Steve Krug

* Envisioning Information - Edward Tufte

* Purple Cow - Seth Godin (see TED talk for 15 min summary)

* The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki

I'm actually attempting to read all 100 in a year. I've read 13 in just under a month.

So far I've enjoyed everything.
It's not that bad if you get rid of TV.

I would say that the summaries/reviews in the book are just that, short/quick summaries or brief reviews. I'm sure with some of the books it would suffice to just read the review in "100 best," but I've really enjoyed a good handful of them so far.

The actual book is a great supplement to reading them.

So far I've only hit one that bored me to death (Innovator's Dilemma)

For example - Chasing The Light - Amazing Book.
A Whack on the Side of the Head - Loved it.
Purple Cow - Classic.

http://noahfleming.com/blog/100-business-books

Permission Marketing - Seth Godin, made me think about what he calls interruption marketing.

Purple Cow - Seth Godin, made me think about standing out.

The Lean Startup - Eric Ries, really changed the way I think about... Well, nearly everything that costs effort.

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins, good theory about why God most probably doesn't exist.

The magic of reality - Richard Dawkins, great story about evolution, religion, etc.

A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson, brilliant book. Perfect summary of our scientific advancements during the last centuries. He made me think about possible natural disasters.

My recommendation is to reflect on what you read. Here's why:

I'm actually trying to cycle off reading business books. I've read so many that I need to spend time implementing what I read, rather than taking in more information. I'm like a chain reader, putting down one book and then picking up another without spending time reflecting on what I learnt.

I noticed this pattern so I've started trying to identify 3 things I learned and/or could implement to my own business upon finishing a book. For me, the reflection on what I learned is more important, I'm not much of a note taker but have the ability to retain vast amounts of information. If something really hits me, Ill put it in Evernote. Without the reflection piece this is probably relegated to my subconscious. I'm actually thinking of going back and trying to think of 3 things from each book I've read previously that I can now record.

This morning I finished the book Focus by Al Ries. It's good.

Here are the 3 things I learnt (recorded upon finishing in Evernote):
1. Focused companies are more profitable.
2. Brand extension is bad.
3. Focus may cause shrinkage in the short term but is far better in the long term.

Hope that helps.

Recommended books:
- How to win friends and influence people (timeless classic)
- How to get Rich by Felix Dennis (spammy title, good read)
- Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrari (networking tips)
- Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh (any business that focuses on customer service is going to do better)
- Purple Cow by Seth Godin (classic)
- The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E Gerber (a great mindset to have for your business)
- The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes (slow start but simply awesome)
- All the 37signals books
- Lean Startup (obviously)

These are just of the top of my head.

I don't keep books. I figure I can always buy them again if I need.

I gave up tracking what I read, but Goodreads.com was good of that.

There's so many Guerilla Marketing books out there that it's easy to get lost reading forever with no return on your time investment. I found one Guerilla Marketing book that's like a 'best of' called "Guerilla Marketing Remix- The Best Of Guerilla Marketing" By Jay Conrad Levinson & his wife.

The Guerilla Marketing Handbook by Seth Godin seemed so dated it was hard to get through, but there were some gems in there. I think Seth's book 'Permission Marketing' is a classic & doesn't get old (not yet at least), I learned alot there. Purple Cow & Free Prize Inside are my favorites of his, still marketing I guess.

Good luck.

A word of caution: "Learning to code" is a pretty broad subject. You should have him think about what he actually wants to accomplish with code when he gets out and have him study topics related to that. He can pickup ancillary things when he gets out; for now he likely wants to be working on something that will help him hit the ground running. If he wants to develop web pages, you should send him some books on JavaScript. If he wants to create mobile apps, there are specific books on this subject for iOS and Android. Most programming languages share concepts like OOP etc anyway, so by learning one he is laying the groundwork to much more easily pickup others.

Also, you should give him realistic expectations. Learning to code isn't the panacea that many think it is. There are many broke but talented programmers out there, and most don't have the extra baggage associated with a felony conviction. If he doesn't truly have a passion to create software, and is just looking for a way to make money, there are more efficient things he can learn about - like the psychology behind viral marketing (The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell and Purple Cow by Seth Godin might be good for example). I know someone that couldn't write a line of code to save his life, but makes 6 figures per month creating Facebook pages around ridiculous topics and using them to drive traffic to affiliate offers and his own Adsense pages. Your friend can always hire coders when needed if creating software isn't what he actually wants to do.

I used to fall into the camp of being frustrated at Gladwell's books.

I would buy them, read them, learn from them, but be frustrated I spent that time and only really got one nugget from the book.

Then I became an adjunct professor. Teaching in my first course, I noticed that even the brightest students would ask me to go over content again with additional examples and it brought me back to these debates about Gladwell's books.

I decided to split my class in half, into group A and group B and run an experiment (that wouldn't impact the student's marks).

For Group A, I would give a detailed two hour breakdown of "Topic #1" explaining each element of it carefully and slowly. For "Topic #2", I would give only a thirty minute breakdown of the topic comprised of three anecdotes applying the topic.

For Group B, I would give the detailed two hour breakdown on "Topic #2" and the thirty minute anecdote series on "Topic #1".

Then I quizzed them.

Both groups performed better on the anecdote topics by a fairly significant margin, and not only had the class average performed better, but, I found that many individuals who often struggled on tests were performing FAR above their averages.

When I look back to the business concepts I remember, it's never long convoluted blog posts, or books covering an array of concepts. It's ideas that can be expressed in a few words (Jelly Effect, Tipping Point, Purple Cow) and then are beaten to death with examples.

There seem two be two reasons, first and foremost, not every anecdote, example, or explanation resonates the same with each person. So by increasing the number of examples you give, you are increasing the likelihood of an individual reader being able to understand.

Second, just like we learned in elementary with spelling and times tables, to truly 'learn' something repetition and reinforcement are really important and increase the likelihood of people being able to recall and apply the concepts that are taught.

Gladwell and others present just one or two nuggets of brilliance across their books, but, I think most educators would agree with me, that it is because of that repetition and variety of example's that most of us understand and remember the concepts they were trying to teach.

In the offline world, much of what "trends" is stuff that hacks people's reward system.

E.g., high-fructose corn syrup, french fries, nicotine, slot machines.

It's bad for us long term, but satisfies our evolved physiological needs in the short term.

Most of the trending content on social media is the same, and much of modern news and commerce has adapted to it.

From what you've said, you're trying to win at the same game, against people/companies who are far more experienced, skilled, resourced and cynical than you.

The answer: don't play that game.

Find a small niche of people you can satisfy with earnestly good quality content.

Think really small - like, 5-10 people, who you can get to know personally and whose interests you can address really really well.

Then grow gradually.

It will seem painfully slow at first, but with a consistent effort over a long enough period of time, you can achieve exponential growth and eventually build a huge audience that really cares about what you have to offer.

One of the best people to follow for guidance on how to do this is Seth Godin. Follow his daily blogs/emails, and read his books, particularly Linchpin, Permission Marketing, Purple Cow and The Dip.

Simon Sinek is another person worth paying attention to.

The "business" books RWR advised against are fluffy, not-business-at-all books like Gladwell -- and Seth Godin's, which are partially fluff, and partially excellent sources of case studies.

The guy quoted in RWR slammed case study books because they are soft-touch "how to build great companies" - but that's only SOME of them. The - you guessed it - fluffy ones.

"Don't read books that are nothing but fluff" is just not a battle cry people click on, so instead they say "don't read business books!"

Read Positioning, Spin Marketing, Pricing with Confidence, Getting to Yes, Rules for Revolutionaries, Purple Cow, etc., etc.

If you read, say, Purple Cow, or Positioning, or Pricing with Confidence, and don't come away with actionable ideas, you either have an empty head or were just running your eyes over the words and not thinking.

And read lots of biographies. They're practical storytelling - learn from me, kid - pinned down on paper.

I was heavily influenced by books and podcasts. Where I was living and working there it was next to impossible to find like-minds, so I went to books. They were like a lifeline to a better life. I actually think it was a handful of podcasts in 2006 (Internet Business Mastery, Venture Voice, and others...) that convinced me it was even possible to be an entrepreneur. No small thing for a kid from central PA.

Many times I've put down a book and immediately started implementing stuff in my business that made a big difference. Books that stick out in this regard are Purple Cow, The Ultimate Sales Machine, Getting Things Done, Work the System, Four Hour Work Week, many of Dan Kennedy's books, Getting Real, and so on.

Read "Purple Cow" by Seth Godin. Implement.

To oversimplify the ideas in his book, Godin says that the old methods of marketing are essentially dead. The only way to market efficiently is to build compelling ideas directly into the product rather than saving the innovation for the advertising.

In addition, I'd recommend reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a stimulating, accessible book that presents the fundamentals of how ideas spread through a populace. Pay close attention to the idea of stickiness and see what you can do to ensure that your product is sufficiently sticky.

Being exceptional and interesting is the way to getting covered. (Read Purple Cow. Seriously. And then read every other Seth Godin book.)

Being famous/well-known is another. (Sounds tough, but you can really reach people by teaching.)

Before you redesign your front page which -- I agree with everyone else -- is confusing, you have to get clear on why YOUR service is so special that journalists would love to write about it. If it isn't, you have to make it so.

Remember that "the media" isn't there to be a mouthpiece for your product, but they are always hunting for interesting stories because that's their job.

My app launch got covered on RWR and LifeHacker the next day (not to brag, this was unintentional). Apparently they follow what I launch because of personal projects I've done before that captured a lot of interest (http://www.twistori.com).

Since then I've also been interviewed for WebWorkerDaily and th Startup Podcast. Those came from the interestingness of our approach with the product, and respect for one of our marketing efforts (http://jumpstartcc.com/), respectively.

My list, categorized:

Business & Management

1. Innovator's Dilemma and Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen

2. Built to Last and Good to Great by Jim Collins. Built to Last is more applicable for startups.

3. Mythical Man Month by Fred Brooks. Anyone who has to manage a team of programmers and hasn't read this will fail utterly, unless they've already failed before (or been on a failing team). There's a lot that's counterintuitive about software project management.

4. Peter Drucker's work. Kinda long and repetitive, but some good insights.

Marketing

1. All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin. I like this better than Purple Cow, Guerilla Marketer's Handbook, and The Big Red Fez. Most of those have fairly obvious stuff.

2. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

3. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore

Technical

1. Building Scalable Websites by Cal Henderson

2. High Performance MySQL by Jeremy Zawodny

3. Pragmatic Programmer by...well, it's mentioned elsewhere here.

There are lots of other technical books I like, but most of them aren't directly relevant to the startup I'm building

About 14 months ago, I had little knowledge of how to execute a startup. In particular, I wasn't familiar with any online marketing tactics. The following books helped me a lot in that respective, and more:

1. Positioning, 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing/Branding, Focus, Marketing Warfare

2. Purple Cow, All Marketers are Liars, Permission Marketing (I didn't like "The Big Moo", "Free prize inside" or "Small is the new Big").

3. Founters At Work

4. Wikinomics, Wisdom of Crowds, The Tipping Point (Blink! was alright). I am looking forward to reading "The Long Tail" and "The starfish and the spider"...has anyone read them yet?

6. Why We Buy

7. Hackers and Painters

8. The E-Myth revisited

9. The Art of the Start

10. On War, The Art of War by Machiavelli and Sun Tzu (not exactly for startups, but definitely useful)

11. Crossing the Chasm