3 Books to Read if You Want to Run a Company

A new phone comes with a manual, and a meal you want to cook comes with a cookbook or a video. A business doesn't come with a manual, though we wish it did. There is no shortage of things to read, so the hard part is finding the right ones.

Our CEO Dave Overton put this reading list together. He thinks good reading matters a lot if you are an entrepreneur, and he says these three books are must-reads if you plan to run (and keep running) your own company soon.

1. The Lean Startup

Author: Eric Ries

The Financial Times, an international daily newspaper covering business and economic news, wrote: "Every so often a business book comes along that changes how we think about innovation and entrepreneurship... The Lean Startup has the chops to join this exalted company."

The Lean Startup is mostly for people starting startups, though a lot of what it teaches helps service companies too. It gives aspiring entrepreneurs a model for thinking about problems in the business and for deciding what to do first.

2. The Hard Thing about Hard Things

Author: Ben Horowitz

Plenty of books talk about how wonderful it is to start a business, and few show you the unglamorous parts. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is like that brutally honest friend who seems not to care how you feel when she tells you things, though she does.

Dave says of it: "It's a really good book, but it's a hard book because it hurts and it would really make you think about the decisions you will face... (but) it lets you know that you're not alone."

The book works through the dilemmas entrepreneurs face, such as what to do when smart people are bad employees, demoting or firing a loyal friend, and how to manage your own psychology while the whole organization relies on you.

3. Traction

Author: Gino Wickman

Traction is named for the grip you should have on your business, so the business doesn't have a grip on you, and the book shows you how to get it.

A business can end up in control of its owner. That happens when the company's problems start to dictate how you do things as the leader.

Traction is the most technical and practical of the three. It teaches the Entrepreneurial Operating System, a model already used by more than 2,000 companies.

None of these books will tell you every step to take, but they work like a mentor or a crash course. Nothing beats experience, and we like these books because they were written from experience. Who knows, they might get you to write your own book too.

If you're thinking of building your own startup, also read this blog article on what to do after you come up with an idea for a product.