6 Things Founders Need To Read

This is a new experiment for me because I plan on adding to this document over time. I have realized that since many many people become founders, we shouldn’t assume they have all of the context as someone who’s been working on startups for thirty years. So here is my annotated list of things founders need to read:

Lean Startup — Defined both the Minimum Viable Product and the idea of frequent experimentation with quantitative metrics.

Customer Discovery — Emphasizes ‘getting out of the building’, one of the hardest things for some founders.

Product Market Fit — Seminal pmarca article defining startups as either pre or post product-market fit.

Growth Loops — From my friends at Reforge, the best growth school in SV. Assume that paid acquisition is getting less affordable and that more of your new customers need to come organically.

Creating a Moat — We are living this one now with two companies, Uber and Lyft, who don’t have a moat and are in a race to the bottom.

Zero to One — Just a great framing by Peter Thiel on what you are doing when you create a startup.