Michael Sikorsky’s picks for budding entrepreneurs

#1 The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win by Steven Blank
This is a really important book. It details the split between Company Discovery (think: startups who think “we have an idea about how we might make money”) versus Company Building (think: “We know how to make money”).

#2 Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton
De Botton’s message is do things because you love them, not because they’ll give you great sound bites to tell at parties.

#3 The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Stephen Pressfield
A must read every year. Note: this isn’t Sun Tzu’s the Art of War.

#4 My Life in Advertising & Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins
It is the science part that I want people to pick up on. Great combo with book one. Most budding entrepreneurs look at advertising wrong. For every dollar that goes into the machine, more than a dollar is supposed to come out for advertising.

#5 Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston
Generally, success stories go like this: “Kid submits iPhone App to AppStore. Kid becomes millionaire.” Livingston’s remarkable book tells stories of what it is really like to start a company. Every time I run a Startup School workshop, I read my class the foreword.