Reading List
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.
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★The best matches for everything you told us, ranked.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Stephen R. Covey · 1989
4.16843,480 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceCompany building
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step…

The Ultimate Sales Machine
Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies
Chet Holmes · 2007
3.979,181 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceFirst salesCompany building
Chet Holmes has been called “one of the top 20 change experts in the country.” He helps his clients blow away both the competition and their own expectations. And his advice starts with one simple concept: focus! Instead of trying to master four thousand…

The Power of Discipline
How to Use Self Control and Mental Toughness to Achieve Your Goals
Daniel Walter · 2020
4.128,370 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceCompany building
Have you spent weeks, months, or even years trying to achieve your goals but keep failing? Have you given up on becoming successful because your futile efforts have led you to believe that success is only for the select few? If you have answered “yes”…

Business Made Simple
60 Days to Master Leadership, Sales, Marketing, Execution, Management, Personal Productivity and More
Donald Miller · 2021
4.192,054 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceFirst salesMarketing and growth
Is this blue book more valuable than a business degree? Most people enter their professional careers not understanding how to grow a business. At times, this makes them feel lost, or worse, like a fraud pretending to know what they're doing. It's hard to be…

Mindset
The New Psychology of Success
Carol S. Dweck · 2006
4.09182,500 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceCompany building
A newer edition of this book can be found here. After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how…

The Power of Consistency
Prosperity Mindset Training for Sales and Business Professionals
Weldon Long · 2013
4.25644 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceFirst salesCompany building
How to achieve wealth, happiness, and peace of mind through personal responsibility The Power of Consistency is based on the fundamental premise that private declarations dictate future actions. In other words, we tend to take actions with the thoughts and…

Millionaire Success Habits
The Gateway To Wealth & Prosperity
Dean Graziosi · 2016
4.063,061 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceCompany building
Millionaire Success Habits is a book designed with one purpose in mind: to take you from where you are in life to where you want to be in life by incorporating easy-to-implement "Success Habits" into your daily routine. Legendary business coach Dean Graziosi…
The books most about focus and resilience.

The Power of Habit
Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Charles Duhigg · 2012
4.13576,931 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilience
In "The Power of Habit", award-winning "New York Times" business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to…

Rich Habits
The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals
Thomas C. Corley · 2010
3.711,791 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilience
The "Rich Habits" are ten principles created through years of researching the daily success habits of his wealthiest clients. These ten simple principles miraculously transform every individual who comes into contact with them. By applying these principles,…

Master of Change
How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You
Brad Stulberg · 2023
4.012,429 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilience
NATIONAL BESTSELLER A revelatory book on rethinking change, creating a rugged and flexible mindset and identity, and developing habits for life's intensifying flux. From social disruptions like economic recessions, pandemics, and new technologies to…

Bit Literacy
Productivity in the Age of Information and E-mail Overload
Mark Hurst · 2007
3.702,567 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilience
"Bit Literacy" is essential reading for anyone who has experienced "digital overload" the daily flood of e-mail, multiple todo lists, a cluttered desktop, documents in various file formats, and the constant distraction of cell phones and other devices. More…

Ready for Anything
52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done
David Allen · 2003
3.855,336 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilience
In his bestselling first book, Getting Things Done, veteran coach and management consultant David Allen presented his breakthrough methods to increase efficiency. Now "the personal productivity guru" (Fast Company) shows readers how to increase their ability…

Focus
Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence
Heidi Grant Halvorson · 2013
3.961,067 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilience
We all want to experience pleasure and avoid pain. But there are really two kinds of pleasure and pain that motivate everything we do. If you are promotion-focused, you want to advance and avoid missed opportunities. If you are prevention-focused, you want to…
Published in the last three years, newest first, for what you told us.

Intentional
How to Finish What You Start
Chris Bailey · 2026
3.86368 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceCompany building
From author of Hyperfocus and productivity expert Chris Bailey, a new approach to finishing what you start.Most of us have no problem setting goals. We know what we want, and we have a pretty good sense of what it takes to get it. But consistently making…

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
Focus and resilienceMarketing and growthFirst sales
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…

Slow Productivity
The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
Cal Newport · 2024
3.6627,060 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceCompany building
Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality. From the New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, a groundbreaking philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload. Our current…

Lean Marketing
More Leads. More Profit. Less Marketing.
Allan Dib · 2024
4.31452 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceMarketing and growthCompany building
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…
Right Thing, Right Now
Justice in an Unjust World
Ryan Holiday · 2024
4.136,450 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilience
In his New York Times bestselling book, Discipline Is Destiny, Ryan Holiday made the Stoic case for a life of self-discipline. In this much-anticipated third installment in the Stoic Virtues series, he argues for the necessity of doing what’s right – even…

Buy Back Your Time
Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire
Dan Martell · 2023
4.365,076 ratings · Goodreads
Focus and resilienceCompany building
Wall Street Journal Bestseller Learn to conquer the one real hurdle to scaling your company and growing Time How you use your free time will make or break your success. The secret? It’s not about working harder or finding more time to do work. It’s about…
How companies like yours were actually built, from the people who built them.
Heartland
A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
Sarah Smarsh · 2018
3.7616,921 ratings · Goodreads
Founder stories
During Sarah Smarsh’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country’s changing economic policies solidified her family’s place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the…

Sam Walton
Made in America
Sam Walton · 1992
4.1527,178 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
As Sam Walton himself said, this is "...a story about entrepreneurship, and risk, and hard work, and knowing where you want to go and being willing to do what it takes to get there. And it's a story about believing in your idea even when maybe some other…
Shoe Dog
A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
Phil Knight · 2016
4.45389,310 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
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…
The Elon Musk Blog Series
Wait But Why
Tim Urban · 2016
4.701,837 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
In 2015, Elon Musk reached out to blogger Tim Urban and asked him if he'd take a crack at explaining Elon's endeavors, and the industries surrounding them, to the world. Tim accepted, and after extensive meetings with Elon and his staff, he wrote four blog…

The Situation Room
The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis
George Stephanopoulos · 2024
4.3211,278 ratings · Goodreads
Founder stories
George Stephanopoulos, former senior advisor to President Clinton and for more than 20 years anchor of This Week and co-anchor of Good Morning America , recounts the crises that decided the course of history, from the place 12 presidents made their…

I Came Upon a Lighthouse
A Short Memoir Of Life With Ratan Tata
Shantanu Naidu · 2021
4.443,152 ratings · Goodreads
Founder storiesCompany building
An endearing portrait of an Indian legend I told him that when I write a book, I would write about another side of him and not just historic events or business milestones. I would write about us and our adventures together, and how I saw him, colours and…
What founders at seed keep coming back to, if you have not read them yet.

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
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…

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
Violate Them at Your Own Risk
Al Ries · 1993
4.0522,738 ratings · Goodreads
Marketing and growthCompany building
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…

Building A Story Brand
Donald Miller · 2017
4.2726,500 ratings · Goodreads
Marketing and growthCompany building
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…

Inspired
How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
Marty Cagan · 2008
4.2226,350 ratings · Goodreads
Company buildingFinding product-market fit
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…
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From the record
Books by investors and founders we hold records for. The author links to what they have done, not just what they wrote.
Every investor and founder on our records links to their books and the podcasts they are on.