9 Books That Every Entrepreneur Should Read

"The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People" Summary of the Book: Stephen R. Covey did a lot of research on self-help books when he was doing his doctoral thesis. During this time, he noticed that the books from the 1920’s concentrated on developing one’s personality traits, and the books before the 1920’s emphasized on character development. In this book, he speaks of seven habits of people who are effective and live a good life because of it. It discusses three stages of character development: dependence, independence and interdependence. This stage marks the progress from dependence to interdependence. This takes place during the growing years of a child till the time they learn how to take care of themselves. Later, they learn to live with others in a cooperative manner and this is termed interdependence. The next three traits are about interdependence. As social animals, humans need to work and learn with one another. It is important for us to form beneficial relationships, learn empathy, and work as a team. The seventh trait, or habit, is called Sharpen the Saw. This stage is also the renewal stage that is concerned with a person can learn to rejuvenate their energy through techniques like prayer, yoga, meditation and reading. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was included in Time magazine’s list of 25 Most Influential Management Books.
About Stephen R. Covey Stephen R. Covey was an American educator, author, businessman and keynote speaker. Some books authored by him are: First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families. His most popular book was: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

'The $100 Startup' Summary of the book The $100 Startup is Chris Guillebeau’s second book and it’s very likely to be the only book you need to start your own business. It is the result of identifying 1,500 people who’ve made $50,000 or more with very modest investments (often less than $100), and Chris’s subsequent focus on the 50 most interesting cases.
Based on his case study, Chris pulled out a step-by-step framework you can use to find where your passion meets your skills and turn those into an income from your couch. Using nothing but a laptop and some wifi in most cases, you can build a thriving software, freelance or education business and scale it as far as you want.
Here are 3 crucial lessons from the book to get you started:
Passion is only 1/3 of the equation, you also need skills and customers.
If you want your passion to be more than a hobby, focus on income and costs.
Keep your plans simple, because action beats them every time. Got your $100 ready? Good, let’s start a business!

'Zero to One' Summary of the book The core lesson is that the best and most disruptive companies go “from zero to one,” from non-existence to existence, from no solution to solution, from nothing expected to something expected. Most companies, though, go from 1 to 1.1, or 1.1 to 1.11, they don’t make a huge disruptive change. To have a lasting impact, you must find a zero and create a new paradigm.
“Today’s “best practices” lead to dead ends; the best paths are new and untried.”
“Indeed, the single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.”
A useful interview question (also for yourself): “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
“Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done, but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can. Positively defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future.”
“If you can identify a delusional popular belief, you can find what lies hidden behind it: the contrarian truth.”