Reading List

The books for what you are building.

Tell us your business model, industry and stage, or how you invest, and get the books worth your time, picked from 30,000 on building and backing companies. Chosen by ratings and what they are about.

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Atomic HabitsJames Clear · 4.31★FreakonomicsSteven D. Levitt · 4.01★The Tipping PointMalcolm Gladwell · 4.01★Rich Dad Poor DadRobert T. Kiyosaki · 4.08★BlinkMalcolm Gladwell · 3.96★Thinking, Fast and SlowDaniel Kahneman · 4.16★The Art of WarSun Tzu · 3.94★
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The best matches for everything you told us, ranked.

  • 1

    Undercover User Experience Design

    Learn How to Do Great UX Work with Tiny Budgets, No Time, and Limited Support

    Cennydd Bowles · 2010

    4.02505 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersFinding product-market fitCompany building

    About the book

    Once you catch the user experience bug, the world changes. Doors open the wrong way, websites don't work, and companies don't seem to care. And while anyone can learn the UX remedies usability testing, personas, prototyping and so on unless your organization…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 2

    80/20 Sales and Marketing

    The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More

    Perry Marshall · 2013

    4.191,904 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersFirst salesMarketing and growth

    About the book

    Stop "Just Getting By" ... Master The 80/20 Principle And Make More Money Without More Work. When you know how to walk into any situation and see the 80/20's, you can solve almost ANY marketing problem. 80/20 can demolish any sales and advertising problem.…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 3

    Venture Deals

    Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist

    Brad Feld · 2011

    4.1117,486 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersRaising moneyCompany building

    About the book

    Praise for Venture Deals"My biggest nightmare is taking advantage of an entrepreneur without even realizing it. It happens because VCs are experts in financings and most entrepreneurs are not. Brad and Jason are out to fix that problem with Venture Deals.…

    On AmazonAudibleAuthor's Podcasts

  • 4

    The Art of Startup Fundraising

    Alejandro Cremades · 2016

    4.02819 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersCompany buildingRaising money

    About the book

    The Art of Startup Fundraising takes a fresh look at raising money for startups, with a focus on the changing face of startup finance. New regulations are making the old go-to advice less relevant, as startup money is increasingly moving online. These new…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 5

    Copywriting Secrets

    Jim Edwards · 2019

    4.311,193 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersMarketing and growthCompany building

    About the book

    What if you could sell anything to anyone? Nobody is born knowing how to sell. But the truth is, you can learn how to sell more . . . a LOT more . . . when you discover the right words that make people buy. Copywriting is selling. Whether online,…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 6

    The 1-Page Marketing Plan

    Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The Crowd

    Allan Dib · 2016

    4.3211,134 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersMarketing and growthCompany building

    About the book

    Do Not Read This Book If You Hate Money To build a successful business, you need to stop doing random acts of marketing and start following a reliable plan for rapid business growth. Traditionally, creating a marketing plan has been a difficult and…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 7

    Profit First

    Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine

    Mike Michalowicz · 2014

    4.2615,184 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersCompany building

    About the book

    Author of cult classics The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur offers a simple, counterintuitive cash management solution that will help small businesses break out of the doom spiral and achieve instant profitability. Conventional accounting…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 8

    How to Master the Art of Selling

    Tom Hopkins · 1981

    4.091,865 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersFirst salesCompany building

    About the book

    After he learned the world's best sales techniques, Tom Hopkins applied his new skills and earned more than one million dollars in just three years. Now, in this fully updated and revised edition of the million copy seller, Hopkins shows how you can succeed…

    On AmazonAudible

The books most about finance and numbers.

  • 1

    Wealthing Like Rabbits

    An Original Introduction to Personal Finance

    Robert R. Brown · 2014

    4.261,690 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbers

    About the book

    CANADIAN BESTSELLER "Smart, funny and totally relatable." - Gail Vaz-Oxlade. The personal finance book Canada is talking about. With personal savings lower than ever before and household debt going through the roof, many people are in dire need of financial…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 2

    Essentials of Accounting

    Robert N. Anthony · 1976

    4.071,125 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbers

    About the book

    For courses in Introductory Accounting. This programmed text has a proven format that involves a unique reversal of pages in the later chapters. This design was conceived as a way to allow the answer column to always appear in th right margin. The book is…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 3

    Financial Fitness

    The Offense, Defense, and Playing Field of Personal Finance

    Chris Brady · 2013

    4.62436 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbers

    About the book

    We call it "The Money Thing": the elusive, often difficult mystery of acquiring, keeping, and continuing to produce enough money to be able to life the life of our choosing. While prescriptions and advice about one's money are as available and varied as diet…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 4

    The Barefoot Investor

    The Only Money Guide You'll Ever Need

    Scott Pape · 2016

    4.3722,058 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbers

    About the book

    ** Reviewed and updated for the 2020-2021 financial year** This is the only money guide you'll ever need That's a bold claim, given there are already thousands of finance books on the shelves. So what makes this one different? Well, you won't be…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 5

    Lower Ed

    The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy

    Tressie McMillan Cottom · 2015

    4.261,560 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbers

    About the book

    “The best book yet on the complex lives and choices of for-profit students.” The New York Times Book Review As seen on The Daily Show , NPR’s Marketplace , and Fresh Air , the “powerful, chilling tale” (Carol Anderson) of higher education becoming an…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 6

    Real estate finance and investments

    William B. Brueggeman, Jeffrey Fisher · 1993

    55 Open Library reading lists

    Finance and numbers

    On AmazonAudibleOpen Library

Published in the last three years, newest first, for what you told us.

  • 1

    Future Rich Person

    The New Rules for Building Wealth

    Haley Sacks · 2026

    4.08420 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbers

    About the book

    From Zillennial Finance Expert Mrs. Dow Jones comes a groundbreaking, judgment-free personal finance guidebook about how to grow wealth on your own terms.You’re not bad with money. It’s just no one ever taught you how to win a game rigged against…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 2

    Our Dollar, Your Problem

    An Insider's View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead

    Kenneth Rogoff · 2025

    4.161,111 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersCompany building

    About the book

    A leading economist explores the global rise of the U.S. dollar and shows why its future stability is far from assured. Our Dollar, Your Problem argues that America’s currency might not have reached today’s lofty pinnacle without a certain amount of good…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 3

    $100M Money Models

    How To Make Money

    Alex Hormozi · 2025

    4.541,436 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersCompany building

    About the book

    *Guinness World Fastest Selling Non-Fiction Book in History*** OVER 5,000,000 COPIES SOLD IN THE $100M SERIES!! ** This book will show you the art of getting more customers to spend more money faster.If you have a business, this book will help you make more…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 4

    Simple Marketing For Smart People

    The One Question You Need to Win Customers without Gimmicks, Hype, or Hard Selling

    Billy Broas · 2024

    4.35305 ratings · Goodreads

    Marketing and growthFirst salesCompany building

    About the book

    Why do so many smart people struggle with marketing? The answer is smart people love complexity, and complexity brews problems. Does your marketing feel like it has way too many moving parts? If so, Simple Marketing for Smart People is the solution you’ve…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 5

    Lean Marketing

    More Leads. More Profit. Less Marketing.

    Allan Dib · 2024

    4.31452 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersMarketing and growthCompany building

    About the book

    Bigger Results with Less Marketing You keep being told to do more marketing―more complex, more aggressive, and more expensive marketing. Chasing the latest bright, shiny object is exhausting. Increased efforts keep leading to disappointment. The overwhelm…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 6

    Incorruptible

    Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great

    Eric Ries · 2026

    4.37355 ratings · Goodreads

    Finance and numbersCompany building

    About the book

    Incorruptible is Eric Ries’s boldest work since The Lean Startup. Where his earlier books offered tools for product innovation and scaling, this one tackles a deeper, systemic why do even the best companies drift from their missions, betraying the trust of…

    On AmazonAudible

How companies like yours were actually built, from the people who built them.

  • 1

    Never Die Easy

    The Autobiography of Walter Payton

    Walter Payton · 2000

    4.231,581 ratings · Goodreads

    Founder stories

    About the book

    "Never die easy. Why run out of bounds and die easy? Make that linebacker pay. It carries into all facets of your life. It's okay to lose, to die, but don't die without trying, without giving it your best." His legacy is towering. Walter Payton, the man they…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 2

    The Ride of a Lifetime

    Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

    Robert Iger · 2019

    4.4099,495 ratings · Goodreads

    Founder storiesCompany building

    About the book

    A grand vision defined: The CEO of The Walt Disney Company shares the ideas and values he has used to reinvent one of the most beloved companies in the world, and inspire the people who bring the magic to life. In 2005, Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 3

    Elon Musk

    Walter Isaacson · 2023

    4.3281,328 ratings · Goodreads

    Founder storiesCompany building

    About the book

    From the author of Steve Jobs and other bestselling biographies, this is the astonishingly intimate story of the most fascinating and controversial innovator of our era, a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles,…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 4

    Shoe Dog

    A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

    Phil Knight · 2016

    4.45389,310 ratings · Goodreads

    Founder storiesCompany building

    About the book

    In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 5

    Source Code

    My Beginnings

    Bill Gates · 2025

    4.1515,248 ratings · Goodreads

    Founder storiesCompany building

    About the book

    The origin story of one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age. The business triumphs of Bill Gates are widely known: the twenty-year-old who dropped out of Harvard to start a software company that…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 6

    The Jordan Rules

    The Inside Story of One Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls

    Sam Smith · 1992

    4.2519,445 ratings · Goodreads

    Founder stories

    About the book

    Sam Smith’s seminal, New York Times bestselling “eye-opener” ( The San Diego Union-Tribune ) on Michael Jordan and the 1990-1991 Chicago Bulls team, perfect for fans of ESPN’s hit documentary series The Last Dance. This is the book that changed the way the…

    On AmazonAudible

What founders at seed keep coming back to, if you have not read them yet.

  • 1

    Crossing the Chasm

    Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers

    Geoffrey A. Moore · 2002

    4.0332,109 ratings · Goodreads

    Marketing and growthCompany buildingFirst sales

    About the book

    Here is the bestselling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries. Crossing the Chasm has become the bible for bringing cutting-edge products to progressively larger markets. This edition provides new insights into the realities…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 2

    The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

    Violate Them at Your Own Risk

    Al Ries · 1993

    4.0522,738 ratings · Goodreads

    Marketing and growthCompany building

    About the book

    There are laws of nature, so why shouldn't there be laws of marketing? As Al Ries and Jack Trout, the world-renowned marketing consultants and bestselling authors of Positioning, note, you can build an impressive airplane, but it will never leave the ground if…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 3

    Building A Story Brand

    Donald Miller · 2017

    4.2726,500 ratings · Goodreads

    Marketing and growthCompany building

    About the book

    New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller uses the seven universal elements of powerful stories to teach readers how to dramatically improve how they connect with customers and grow their businesses. Donald Miller’s StoryBrand process is a proven…

    On AmazonAudible

  • 4

    Inspired

    How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

    Marty Cagan · 2008

    4.2226,350 ratings · Goodreads

    Company buildingFinding product-market fit

    About the book

    Learn to design, build, and scale products consumers can't get enough of How do today's most successful tech companies–Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla–design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of…

    On AmazonAudible

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Read what the people you are pitching read.

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