Start Up/New Business Book Recommendations

Hi all,

As I have always known, working as a PAYE employee for life was never going to work for me. So after 5 years working for others - I am now in the position where I have an idea, and a concept of a viable solution to solve a genuine problem.

I am still in the very early stages - so I am looking for recommendations from the successful people here on good books to read. In particular books regarding practical and useful ways to how to get this thing off the ground, or anything else you personally found useful.
Thanks

 

personally I think no amount of talking, reading, advice, or whatever you call it, will replace good timing, good product/service, good setup, trial and error, good ideas,

 

I'm not looking to replace it.
Just to make sure hard work is also smart work, and to encourage some out of the box thinking.
After all - I thought I knew a bit about property investing until I signed up here.

 

I just read the 5 Minute Business by Mark Middo and found it very useful.

Lots of practical ideas to get a business off the ground very quickly.

 

I suggest 'secretes of an online entrepreneur'. Cheesy title but very well written, great content about branding and advertising. A real eye opener.

 

Not sure what line of business.. but try E Myth by Michael Gerber

 

Awesome responses thanks guys!
You are right in thinking the idea has an IT element, time to get into some reading!
A co-working space sounds good - but I'm not in a position where I can drop my PAYE job just yet.
I am already thinking of ways to ensure customer validation - so it's good to know I'm on the right track.
I'm a business project manager by day so early and consistent stakeholder engagement is a common theme for success.
Using the knowledge I have from my day job - I have a good idea on how to get the solution built and up - but I guess I need to conduct a knowledge gaps analysis to identify what else I need to know. It's areas like marketing, company structure, accounting, that I only have a rudimentary knowledge of.

 

It's not a book (although the presenter has just released a book along the same lines) but I find the Small Business Big Marketing podcast to be really useful.

I'm in the early stages of setting up a couple of web-based businesses, and have picked up a lot of free or inexpensive ideas to help market the business in its early stages.

 

You will learn something that may prove useful from this book:

Book:
#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness: Gary Vaynerchuk: 9780062273123: Amazon.com: Books
Audiobook:
#AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur's Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness

 

I hope not

 

Thanks don't worry - plenty of time is being spent developing the idea further. I have a business background - but I'll definitely need to link up with some others in IT etc to get this off the ground.
It's still very very early days - the idea was incubating in my head for a good 6 months until a about a month ago where I started to flesh it out.
I have some direction and some good books to pick up. I'll be sure to touch base when I have more progress to report. Where are you based? Sydney?

 

Thanks mate, may well do that next time I'm down
Do you know of any small business/start up forums similar to what property chat is for property? Iv done some initial searching but having signed up anywhere yet.

 

Haha, just fixed it now to the correct word.

 

I have been working on a tech startup for the past 1 year. My company has been running since Sept 14. Flyingsolo is a great place to get some insights on the tech front of your startup, especially if you need help regarding SEO or Marketing.

I would recommend reading: Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Gabriel Weinberg . He's the guy who started the search engine DuckDuckGo.

Also, there are a ton of websites that you can approach to pitch your startup to. Some that come to my mind immediately are startupdaily, startupsmart, lifehacker, anthill, mashable, smartcompany (only reports businesses that are already making a decent amount of revenue). These sites can give your business that user boost.

 

Hey you have one of the best online business builders in the world right on your doorstep in Sydney...James Schramko ....search him online, get into his paid forum and get this biz started the right way...theres a lot of people making a lot of money in that forum...

 

My total business experience comprises the writing and marketing of one specialist book that is available only in electronic form. However I am approaching it as a business and sales have been excellent (similar to the gross rent on a modest IP with zero costs). Marketing in its first six months has been free/word of mouth but I'm now experimenting with paid online advertising (business page at VK3YE Radio Books ).

Anyway, as a spare time sideline alongside my regular full-time job, I've focused on making the business model as simple as possible. I accept I can't be all things to all people. I'd rather do a few things well than many things poorly.

In my context this means the book is available in electronic form rather than a paper edition. I've had less than 10 requests for the latter as opposed to nearly 2000 sales for the electronic edition, so I think sticking to the latter is good business sense.

Another thing I was reflecting on last night was the market. It's a very specialised market and not necessarily one with much growth. But it also means there's little competition. And I already have a high profile in the area (free marketing on established YouTube channel etc). So it's possible to get worthwhile sales from an area that most would pass over as too niche. Whereas although a topic like romantic novels might be much more widely read the presence of competition would make a best seller a high risk/low probability (but potentially high return) game that's not for me.

Have you looked at your business and identified what market areas you wish to serve and those you wish to leave for others?