Most of the successful entrepreneurs we know today are self-made, and most of those successful people made reading a daily habit.

First, I was skeptic about reading books too often.

In my opinion, it’s impossible to absorb all of a book. It’s hard!

However, I gave a try to read more books.

And the result exceeded all expectations!

Here are some books I believe every entrepreneur should read.

Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Peter Thiel is a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal and was Facebook’s first outside investor. In Zero to One, Thiel reveals how to build companies that create new things, drawing on everything he’s learned directly as a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and then as an investor in hundreds of startups, including Facebook and Elon Musk’s Space X.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.

Similarly to The Effective Executive, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People sets out a series of behaviour that will make you more effective. Covey takes an integrated approach to help entrepreneurs improve their personal and interpersonal development. 

The book is designed in a way that each habit (when implemented in order) will prepare you for the next and strengthen the previous. 

Covey’s seven habits that will help you reach your full potential are: 

• Being proactive – Don’t react to the world. Instead, take charge of your life. 
• Beginning with an end in mind – Visualize your ideal future, and design a road map to get there. 
• Putting first things first – Prioritize what brings you closer to your vision of your ideal future.
• Thinking “win-win” – Build positive relationships that accelerate you towards your ideal future. 
• Seeking first to understand, then to be understood – Learn to listen, then learn to speak.
• Synergising – Find a way to harmonize with both others and yourself so you can achieve more. 
• Sharpening the saw – Make sure you find time to recharge so you can be effective in the long term. 

The first three habits are designed to help you develop “self-mastery” – or personal victories. 

Then habits four through six will focus you on teamwork, cooperation, and communications – or public victories

Finally, habit seven teaches you how to balance and renew the preceding habits. 

This is by far one of the best books for entrepreneurs looking to improve their daily habits to become more effective both professionally and personally.

How to Win Friends Influence People by Dale Carnegie

As an entrepreneur, you’re going to be dealing directly with people on a daily basis.

Whether that’s speaking with clients, internal staff, agents, contractors, potential investors – that’s a lot of conversations with a lot of different people.

And while it might seem trivial, the “art” of good conversation is in fact a difficult skill to learn. One that certainly doesn’t come easy to all.

So what Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence Them does is navigate you around the gallery. It teaches you how to communicate depending on the relationship you have with that person, making it our favourite book covering business psychology.

An area perhaps often overlooked by budding entrepreneurs!

A standout example for me was the simple gesture of wishing someone a happy birthday. Think about it for a second. It feels good, doesn’t it, when someone remembers your birthday and makes the effort to reach out. Especially if it’s coming from someone outside of your close circle of friends and family. Someone you wouldn’t perhaps expect it from. Small gestures such as these go a long way to building relationships as an entrepreneur.

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Power is, and always has been, an integral part of our society and lives. In this book, Greene attempts to distill 3,000 years of history into 48 laws that can help us gain power over or prevent being manipulated by others. It gives us great insight into the issues that affect us in business, social and political spheres thereby giving us a better understanding of how to conduct ourselves.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini

Business, as in life, is all about negotiations and every few years I re-visit Robert Cialdini’s 1984 masterpiece to remind me of the finer points of negotiations to help me win new customers, keep my costs low and my employees happy. Based on 35 years of evidence, Cialdini covers key influencers of persuasion which include the weapons of influence, the importance of reciprocation, why you must have commitment and consistency, showing social proof, why both parties should like each other, how to show authority and prove scarcity.

The Lean Startup by Eric Reis

The Lean Startup is a must-read and easily tops the list of the best business books for entrepreneurs. This book is all about how to turn your startup idea into a sustainable business. 

The detailed approach Eric Ries takes can help you build a product or service that customers want, and are willing to pay for. All with minimum wasted time or effort. 

The book starts with identifying your biggest assumptions. The:

• Value Assumption 
• Growth Assumption 

The value assumption is the belief that customers are going to find value in what you’re about to build. The assumption that what you’re planning is going to work.

The growth assumption is all about how you’re going to attract customers to your business over time in a profitable way. 

Ries then takes you through the process of converting these two assumptions into testable hypotheses. 

Then he guides you to find quick and inexpensive ways to test and validate those hypotheses, including building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or creating a promotional video and landing page. 

The combination of these processes and insights will help you navigate the uncertainty all businesses face and give you the tools you need to build a lasting, sustainable company. 

Leaders by General Stanley McChrystal, Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone

A fantastic insight into the minds and actions of thirteen of the world’s greatest leaders—from Robert E. Lee to Walt Disney—that has influenced the way I lead my small organization. Written in 2018 by a retired U.S. Army four-star general who led the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, McChrystal’s theme throughout the book is “what makes a leader great?” I’m not anywhere near there yet, but this book gives me a path to follow.