Books and Reading

Resources > Entrepreneurship Reading List

In association with Amazon.com, the MIT $100k brings you this list of books that we have found useful. By buying books recommended on this page, you receive the same great price and customer service as you always do at Amazon.com, as well as helping to provide funding for the MIT $100k.

Marketing & Sales
Marketing High Technology: An Insider's ViewBill Davidow

Discusses how to create a complete marketing program for high-tech products. Draws the line between pieces of technology and products.

 

The New Strategic SellingStephen Heiman, et al

How to sell in today's competitive market, when you need more than shiny shoes and a firm handshake.

 

Relationship MarketingRegis McKenna

A classic look at maximizing profit by retaining customers.

 

Crossing the ChasmGeoffrey Moore

The classic book on the marketing challenges faced by high-tech companies. Explains why it's so much harder for these companies to sell to the masses than to the "early adopters."

 

Webonomics: Nine Essential PrinciplesEvan Schwartz

Cuts through the hype and examines the true commercial realities of the Web.

 

Design and Marketing of New ProductsGlen L. Urban & John R. HauserA complete and practical, how-to exploration of each step in the strategy, opportunity identification, design, testing, launch, and profit-management stages of new-product development.
Business Planning
Business Plans that Win $$$: Lessons from the MIT Enterprise ForumStanley Rich & David Gumpert

Clear and straightforward advice on how to write an effective business plan.

 

 

Business Plans for DummiesPaul Tiffany & Steven Peterson

Not just for dummies, this readable reference covers all the aspects needed to create a clear and comprehensive business plan.

 

The Entrepreneurial VentureWilliam Sahlman & Howard Stevenson

Readings on all facets of entrepreneurship, including innovation, valuation, attracting stakeholders and financing, managing growth and harvesting.

 

The Complete Guide to Running and Growing Your BusinessAndrew Sherman

Provides practical advice concentrating on the legal and contractual issues involved in starting and growing a business.

 

Product Development
The Innovator's DilemmaClayton Christensen

Explores how new technologies sometimes cause the downfall of successful, established firms. Exactly what you should be looking to do when you start your own firm!

 

Product Design and DevelopmentKarl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger

Provides a comprehensive framework for applying product-development tools and techniques.

 

Startup Strategy
How to Drive Your Competition CrazyGuy Kawasaki

Not just guerrilla marketing, but guerrilla sales, production and human resources. Everything the cash-constrained entrepreneur needs to get the upper hand.

 

Inside the TornadoGeoffrey Moore

Once you have successfully croessed the chasm and reached the mass market, you begin to experience the problems and opportunities of "hypergrowth" -- Moore's second book provides effective strategies for capturing maximum value.

 

Corporate VenturingZenas Block & Ian MacMillan

This book explores the issues involved in "intrapreneurship" -- developing successful ventures within corporations.

 

Only the Paranoid SurviveAndy Grove

Only the Paranoid Survive is about recognizing, overcoming, and even profiting from the inevitable groundshifts in commercial life that shake established enterprises to the ground and raise newcomers to power and wealth.

 

Start-Up: A Silicon Valley AdventureJerry Kaplan

This is a vivid and lively rise-and-fall account of a company born to create a pen-based computer. It begins on a corporate jet with the author and fellow industry visionary (and MIT $100k judge) Mitchell Kapor, founder of Lotus, sharing a vision of pen computing.

 

The Silicon Valley WayElton Sherwin, Jr.

The Silicon Valley has become the global trendsetter, with governments around the world emulating their high-tech centers. In this book, Elton Sherwin describes the acid tests used by successful executives and venture capitalists, and encapsulates the questions they ask and the tools they employ to pick the winners.

 

Hypercompetitive RivalriesRichard D'Aveni and Robert Gunther

Using detailed examples from hypercompetitive industries such as computers, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals, D'Aveni demonstrates how hypercompetitive firms succeed by disrupting the status quo and creating a continuous series of temporary advantages.

 

Financing
Essentials of AccountingRobert N. Anthony

This self-teaching introduction to financial accounting presents the ideas and terminology essential to gain an understanding of balance sheets and income statements. It takes a careful step-by-step problem-solving approach in order to help readers master the basics.

 

Pratt's Guide to Venture CapitalDaniel Bokser & Ted Weissberg, ed.

For everything there is to know about the Venture Capital industry, this is the place to look.

 

Analysis for Financial ManagementRobert C. Higgins

Financial analysis is one of the most important and valuable skills for today's entrepreneurs. Higgins gives you the essential tools, strategies, and tactics for improving the financial dimensions of your operating decisions.

 

Fiction
The First $20 Million is Always the HardestPo BronsonWhat does it take for entrepreneurs to risk everything, develop a product, start a company, and take it public? This is a truly hilarious story about the misadventures of a group starting out in Silicon Valley.