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Books That Will Ruin Your Excuses
15
items The business books I actually finished, which is a shorter list than the ones I bought. Each one removed a specific reason I was using to not start. Read them before buying another course.
Sections
3
Start and validate
Sell and market
Keep going
Start and validate
The books that get an idea out of your head and into the world before perfectionism kills it.
How to ask people about your idea without them lying politely. The most practical business book I own, readable in an evening.
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
Permission to stay small on purpose and profit anyway. Deliberately lean is a strategy, not a failure to scale.
Company Of One: Why Staying Small Is Big
Proof by case study that tiny money starts real businesses. The excuse about needing capital does not survive chapter three.
The $100 Startup - Chris Guillebeau.pdf
Forty short chapters of business philosophy from a man who accidentally built a giant one. Readable in a bath, quotable for years.
Anything You Want - book by Derek Sivers
Why doing the work and running the business are different jobs. The book that explains why talented people build exhausting companies.
The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber Companies
Sell and market
Marketing for people who feel gross about marketing. These fix the ick and the strategy at the same time.
Your customer is the hero, not you, and once seen it cannot be unseen. Rewrote my bio and sales page within a week.
Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message
Marketing reframed as helping the right people find the thing that helps them. Read before writing another apologetic launch post.
This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen
Demand before supply, launches people queue for. The strategic argument against shouting into the void daily.
Oversubscribed Book
Pay yourself before the business eats everything. The percentage system feels too simple until the accounts prove otherwise.
Profit First - Mike Michalowicz
Keep going
The books for the messy middle, where motivation has quit and the work still needs shipping.
Systems over motivation, because motivation quits by Wednesday. Everywhere because it works.
Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results by James Clear
Ship the work, feelings optional. The reread for when a launch scares me.
The Practice: Shipping Creative Work: Godin, Seth
The case for protecting focus like it is revenue, because it is. Changes how you treat your best two hours.
Deep Work a book by Cal Newport
Originality is a remix, proven in an hour. Kills the “it has been done” excuse permanently.
Steal Like An Artist - a book by Austin Kleon
The follow-up that solves “what do I even post”. Sharing the process is the content, and this is the manual.
Show Your Work! a book by Austin Kleon
Less strategy, more permission slip. Keep it for the wobble weeks, because they come.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert