Not sure if it's a cultural thing between the US and the UK or just society evolving now we have social media and stuff but I recently reread How to win friends and influence people and though it was massively overrated. Same goes for The 7 habbits of highly effective people.

Anyway, heres my list of books and why:-

Bounce

Excellent book in my opinion. Based on variations of the 10,000-hour rule with plenty of examples. Also touches on how the unknown habits and circumstance of someone can lead to outstanding abilities.

Zero To One

The first book that I couldn't put down until I completed it. Picked a fair few things up from it as well as a bunch of things I hope to move forward within the future with startups.

The 33 Strategies of War

Not a business book but definitely my style if you take the examples and strategies and turn them into business. This is the second book I have not been able to put down once picking it up.

The E-Myth Revisited

Although I had a decent understanding of how to allocate duties to people depending on their job role this helped me better understand it as well as the importance of doing it.

ReWork

Another book I loved, just introduced me to a bunch of new concepts with a fair few I hope to use in the future.

Black Box Thinking

Coming from and engineering background I was already used to being ok with my failures provided I was learning from them but this book is based around how different industries treat failure and how it is important to accept it and grow from it.


Millionaire Fastlane

I feel this is an excellent book for reality checks and getting people into a better mindset of what to expect and the amount of work required. It also explains a few common misconceptions of the get rich slow style methods where you may end up rich but you will be 60 years old or more.

I update this post with all of the books I have read with a rating but here are my top picks.

Rework - lies das Buch mal.

Hat uns bei der zweiten Gründung enorm geholfen.

OP,
Calm down. Like you say, it was a learning experience and it seems a good one at that.
To everyone else's defence, when you can drop terms like "profit margin," "overhead" and "markup," it doesn't grant you business expertise. Or at the least, it doesn't impress this subreddit.
Instead it makes it sounds like you took a Business 101 class.
More telling was the new phone and business cards. These are, at best, things you need after a first client (proof you have a "business").
But when you started in on Class A shares and Class B non-voting shares, it made me re-read the first paragraph. I'm thinking "Is this guy doing landscaping, or is prep'ing a visit to a VC?"

You've got drive. That's great. And now you have experience -- from one try. Try again. You'll fail again, and that's cool. Especially cool if you try again.
Best to you and whoever you pair up with next. In the meantime, fill in time with a few books like Lean Startup and Rework.

You can find a lot of free information on the internet. At free, it's overpriced.

>What do you guys think? Do you have to spend money when you are just starting out?

A lot of people don't think so, from the freemium to open source to the unpaid internship the consensus would seem to be free is the way to go.

So I'll say the only time this is false is when when you use free to make up for ignorance about marketing. Because it takes exponentially more savvy to monetize free -- the epic fail of most small business.

The people using free seem to think free killed marketing. It didn't. Free made marketing smarts critical for survival.

I think if you can sell it, then you can give it away. If you couldn't sell it, don't give it away. A bitch slap of truth right there.

Because when you understand what I just said, you don't have to stop at Free.

Getting Real is marketing material 37signals sells to potential customers. The cost to buy 37signals latest marketing materials is $13.85.

Having potential customers pay for content marketing is better than free. That is the principle content marketers can't comprehend. If you couldn't sell it, don't give it away.

Seth Godin understands this. Another way to see this: The money you're paying for marketing and advertising and for SEO is a tax on mediocrity. Want to spend zero, or less? Don't come to market with an unremarkable product.

37signals can give stuff away free. So can Seth Godin. Others ... not so much. They are overcharging.

Test your ideas. The one thing that you can know for sure is that you are wrong... about something. It may be small and unimportant but you need to be able to adjust and the quicker you can the better results you can get.
Good books to read:
The lean startup (http://theleanstartup.com/)
Rework (http://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745)

Failure is the road to success, Fail often and fail fast, Learn, Grow, Change....

and good luck!

I think I've read like 1 book on "marketing" so I'm not your best help, but I love the 37 signals guys so "ReWork" was a quick enjoyable read. Made me feel like I wasn't crazy.

I guess upon further investigation, it might be more about running a business. Which for me is the hope to run an ad agency so it all sort of went together.

http://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394691738&sr=8-1&keywords=rework

These books are more theoretical and about self growth as a well-rounded designer, if you want game theory others listed some great ones like Rules of Play and Book of Lenses. That said, here's my list:

• Level Design For Games: Creating Compelling Game Experiences by Phil Co (Valve)
  
  It's more of a broad game design book since it talks about all the pipelines / processes of all departments coming together, with an emphasis on scripting / level design for crafting experiences. Portion of the book uses Unreal Engine 2 as a reference, but you can probably use UE4 or something else to follow along the actual game design lessons he's teaching and not have the take away be a technical tutorial.
  
  
• Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull (Pixar)
  
  I cannot describe how invaluable this book is, if you're only to get one from the list it'd be this one. While it does covers Pixar's history as a frame of reference for a lot of stuff, it's also more importantly about their ideology for fostering creativity, productivity and work/ life balance -- all of which are important and can be applied to Game Design.
  
  
• Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister.
  
  I read this one after Gabe Newell recommended it one of his interviews and it was at a time in my career when I was working at a AAA studio struggling with the corporate forces that got in the way of creativity / productivity. It was one of those that changed me as a developer. It's more from a management point of view, but seriously applicable if you are collaborating with other people in game development, either on the same level as you or those who rely on your work to do theirs. Or if you are going to work at studio, AAA or indie, it's also an insightful book to evaluate whether the culture cultivated by management is in your best interest so that you have the tools to do your best work without burning out.
  
  
• Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson (Basecamp / Ruby on Rails)
  
  This one is like Peopleware but not as exhaustive, it's an easier read since it's a compilation and edit of blog posts the authors wrote on their old website 37signals. It's more or less about getting stuff done and filtering out noise, simplifying things to make results better -- this one is relatable for planning game project milestones. A lot of it will sound like common sense that a lot of people may say they already know, but it's surprising how many don't actually practice it.

Had this list together from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but these are my favorite books and I'd recommend everybody read them all. There are other great books out there, but this is a pretty well rounded list that touches everything a company needs.

The Lean Startup https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

Business Model Generation https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788

Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-customers-ebook/dp/B00NSUEUL4

Predictable Revenue https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

To Sell is Human https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905

Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

Delivering Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591396190
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh et al. Link: http://amzn.com/160941280X
  
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Link: http://amzn.com/0804137382
  
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston Link: http://amzn.com/1590597141
  
• How Google Works by Eric Schmidt et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1455582344
  
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk Link: http://amzn.com/006227306X
  
• Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson Link: http://amzn.com/0307720748
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1400064287
  
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Link: http://amzn.com/0345472322
  
• Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0385346654
  
• Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1476714207
  
• Rework by Jason Fried et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0307463745
  
• Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin Link: http://amzn.com/1591842948
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss Link: http://amzn.com/0307465357
  
• The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth by James Altucher Link: http://amzn.com/150100994X
  
• The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson Link: http://amzn.com/0060008768
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Link: http://amzn.com/0062273205
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen Link: http://amzn.com/0062060244
  
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Link: http://amzn.com/0307887898
  
• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco Link: http://amzn.com/B004BDOUAI
  
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday Link: http://amzn.com/1591846358
  
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1885167776
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0984999302
  
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Link: http://amzn.com/0316346624
  
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591848369
  
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out by Marc Ecko Link: http://amzn.com/1451685319
  
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0804139296

Rework was not on that list. That is not a very good list.

Hey, I recommend reading rework!

I'm 31 and just started my own company. When I turned 16, I had a profound epiphany about what I wanted to do "when I grew up". That epiphany was I wanted to own my own business. The why, came from the experiences I had since I was 14.


I worked as a delivery guy for two guys who owned a bounce house company. At 15, I was employee 1 at an advertising company. I started in the mailroom stuffing envelopes and I continued to work for that company through college and even a few months after graduating college. I didn't stay in the mailroom though. As I taught myself programming and a little design, I was growing within the company, as they themselves grew in revenue and size. I was getting a front row seat to what it was like to be an entrepreneur and I loved every minute of it; the long hours, the struggles, the doing whatever it takes, carving your own path, etc.


Even though I knew being an entrepreneur was part of my path in life, it has taken me 16 yrs to make that a reality. I have no regrets as I've been able to gain knowledge and experience the entire time. Everything you experience in life can help you in some way on your path to becoming an entrepreneur.


Remember, you can do a lot of good by being an employee too. You have not failed if you don't start a company.

1. Get a job right now if you don't already have one. Work and understand what work is and build a work ethic. Even better, find a job at a small company, no matter what it is. At most small companies, no matter your role, you get exposed to the entire business.
   
   
2. Meet and speak with entrepreneurs. Check out Meetup.com for events which are going on. You might be limited to not attending the events that are bars, but I've seen plenty of kids your age attending events.
   
   
3. Find a skill and learn it. You might not think it now, but as /u/douglasjdarroch stated, you have a ton more free time to devote to that skill than when you get a full time job. I'm partial to it, but any amount of technology skills will help you with your pursuit.
   
   
4. Culture is huge when it comes to creating a successful company it can be a differentiator.
   
   Suggested Reading
   
   

• The Great Game of Business
  
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
  
• Rework
  
• Leaders Eat Last
  
• Zingerman's Guide to Building a Great Company
  
• Zingerman's Guide to Being a Great Leader

Some of these are directly related to programming and some are not but are additional reading that touch on skills that most every programmer should have some concept or idea of.

I've read all of these at some point throughout my career and can attest to their usefulness. Here's my personal list:

• Rework
  
  
• Refactoring - Honestly, anything written by Martin Fowler.
  
• The Mythical Man Month
  
  
• The Phoenix Project
  
  
• The Goal - targeted towards manufacturing and production, but the lessons can be applied pretty much anywhere there's a process (anywhere).
  
  
• Programming Language Pragmatics
  
  
• The Traveling Salesman
  
  
• The Art of Computer Programming - This collection of books is a journey spanning many years. The problems presented in the book are ones you'll want to mull over for some time, and the type of problems that would be good to think about during a daily commute.
  
  
  

The Clean Coder is pretty great as it talks about being a professional developer and all that that entails. Very opinionated though (as all of Uncle Bob's books are). "If you don't do TDD, fuck you" is a fairly accurate paraphrasing of one chapter. Still, I found a lot of value there.

I recently read Rework which is a very quick read, but very dense with information on how Basecamp runs their business and many ideas of things that you should or should not do. If you do any freelancing or are thinking of starting your own business at some point, I'd recommend it.

Probably going to read Remote next as I'm working with remote business partners myself.

Rework, its fantastic if you are into business.

That's not the right attitude. Companies need to stop removing all pauses from the workplace.

You block all websites, time the smoke pauses, time the toilet use, then what, you hide the windows?

Voluntary distractions are a part of work. Managers should stop measuring performance on apparent time spent, and more on the results. They don't because it's much easier to do this way.

Also, if they want their employees to be less distracted, they should start by stopping to distract them with useless meetings and non-urgent calls.

Read the short and excellent Rework by 37signals on the subject. It gives an excellent perspective. Their talks about management are good as well.

QBQ. The Question Behind the Question


The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

Rework


Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In


Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management

Time Management for System Administrators

Senior Level Software Engineer Reading List

Read This First

1. Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment
   
   

   Fundamentals
   

   
   

2. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
   
3. Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions
   
4. Enterprise Patterns and MDA: Building Better Software with Archetype Patterns and UML
   
5. Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail
   
6. Rework
   
7. Writing Secure Code
   
8. Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries
   
   

   Development Theory
   

   
   

9. Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests
   
10. Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications
    
11. Introduction to Functional Programming
    
12. Design Concepts in Programming Languages
    
13. Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective
    
14. Modern Operating Systems
    
15. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
    
16. The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles
    
17. Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
    
    

    Philosophy of Programming
    

    
    

18. Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It
    
19. Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think
    
20. The Elements of Programming Style
    
21. A Discipline of Programming
    
22. The Practice of Programming
    
23. Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective
    
24. Object Thinking
    
25. How to Solve It by Computer
    
26. 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

27. Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
    
28. The Intentional Stance
    
29. Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes In The Age Of The Machine
    
30. The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures
    
31. The Timeless Way of Building
    
32. The Soul Of A New Machine
    
33. WIZARDRY COMPILED
    
34. YOUTH
    
35. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
    
    

    Software Engineering Skill Sets
    

    
    

36. Software Tools
    
37. UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language
    
38. Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development
    
39. Practical Parallel Programming
    
40. Past, Present, Parallel: A Survey of Available Parallel Computer Systems
    
41. Mastering Regular Expressions
    
42. Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools
    
43. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice in C
    
44. Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book
    
45. The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security
    
46. SOA in Practice: The Art of Distributed System Design
    
47. Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques
    
48. Data Crunching: Solve Everyday Problems Using Java, Python, and more.
    
    

    Design
    

    
    

49. The Psychology Of Everyday Things
    
50. About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
    
51. Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty
    
52. The Non-Designer's Design Book
    
    

    History
    

    
    

53. Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality
    
54. Death March
    
55. Showstopper! the Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft
    
56. The PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth
    
57. The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad
    
58. In the Beginning...was the Command Line
    
    

    Specialist Skills
    

    
    

59. The Art of UNIX Programming
    
60. Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment
    
61. Programming Windows
    
62. Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X
    
63. Starting Forth: An Introduction to the Forth Language and Operating System for Beginners and Professionals
    
64. lex & yacc
    
65. The TCP/IP Guide: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Internet Protocols Reference
    
66. C Programming Language
    
67. No Bugs!: Delivering Error Free Code in C and C++
    
68. Modern C++ Design: Generic Programming and Design Patterns Applied
    
69. Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#
    
70. Pragmatic Unit Testing in C# with NUnit
    
    

    DevOps Reading List
    

    
    

71. Time Management for System Administrators: Stop Working Late and Start Working Smart
    
72. The Practice of Cloud System Administration: DevOps and SRE Practices for Web Services
    
73. The Practice of System and Network Administration: DevOps and other Best Practices for Enterprise IT
    
74. Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale
    
75. DevOps: A Software Architect's Perspective
    
76. The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations
    
77. Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
    
78. Cloud Native Java: Designing Resilient Systems with Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, and Cloud Foundry
    
79. Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation
    
80. Migrating Large-Scale Services to the Cloud

If you've read it, upvote!

Rework. after 4 years undergrad b-school + 2 years top 20 MBA b-school, best biz book i ever read

I thought Rework was a great read. It in and of itself is a productive book with the chapters being super short and to the point lol. But it's catered more towards business and startups so just depends what you're looking for.

Also, their book Rework is amazing. Definitely a must read.

http://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

One of the least expensive, and possibly most valuable, items you can own for your business. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Rework

Traction

Web Startup Success Guide

Oh I typed all this for you my dude but these dastardly bullies caused you to delete it.

​

Hope it benefits you or another ENTP stoner:

​

What caught my eye was the Myers-Briggs test: I also (usually) test ENTP. Just wanted to say I think the Reddit subs seem to do it a serious disservice:

​

A) It is a management tool. It is not meant to enable some rando's life as a lovable eccentric. You should be shoring up the weaknesses it shows, not jerking off to how creative you think you are (not that you can stop yourself amirite? Ha!), and

B) It is not a tarot card reading of your soul. I get profiled regularly, by professionals, using whatever method is in vogue at that moment and while I absolutely see the value in the tests, it is limited, it is contextual and it will vary over time.

​

It is not so much "revealing" your personality as a prediction of how your behavior will manifest in a given context. MB being particularly general. For example, all my ENTP result tells me is that RIGHT NOW, I likely have too many projects going on and/or am managing my time poorly.

​

So based on your results, I would recommend you get out of your comfort zone and focus on active productivity exercises. Far from being something unsuited to you: they are likely just what you need. Anytime I dial this in tight, my life has a night and day improvement.

​

7 Habits is the granddaddy of course.



Unchained Man has a great time management system. Actually he refers back to Covey's 7 habits and explains why and how he updated the principle for a digital era. The rest isn't "bad" but its pretty standard 4HWW/TRP/Digital nomad type stuff. You could literally read Chapters 8-11 and get a great deal of benefit.

​

4HWW fuck I hate this book. And it's probably dangerous for lazy fucks. But Ferriss has nuggets of good advice on productivity and time management.

​

More conceptual reading:

Do the Work;

The War of Art;

The Power of Habit;

Rework;

On Form - some tips, although heavily weighted to glorify salaryman life;

One Minute Manager;

Extreme Ownership has helped a lot of dudes here. Personally I despise wading through the military waffle for two or three pages of content but the message of owning every aspect of your life and not accepting low standards from yourself or others is good (Hint: that means after you quit weed, (after a reasonable interval) you can and should expect your lazy wife to too).

​

Corporations have invested a great deal of time and money in training me but honestly most of the valuable things I implement are on that list.

​

Atomic Habits is on my current reading list. Check out this post (and comments) with some concepts from it.

Absolutely This
Read it

I'd say start with Steve Blank and Rework.

I'd also suggest you share more about your business idea so we can give more specific help.

Don't worry - the chance of somebody dropping their entire career and life to steal your idea is negligible; the expected value of specific advice massively outweighs this risk. :)

If you haven't read Reworked you should check it out. Jason never took investment money for 37 signals and built a business making millions a year. I highly recommend his book.

http://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

A few books that I absolutely love are; Good to Great, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (this isn't exactly a business book, but a lot of the principles in it help you be a better leader/person which is extremely important when running a business) and Rework

I'll throw out some of my favorite books from my book shelf when it comes to Computer Science, User Experience, and Mathematics - all will be essential as you begin your journey into app development:

Universal Principles of Design

Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible

Rework by 37signals

Clean Code

The Art of Programming

The Mythical Man-Month

The Pragmatic Programmer

Design Patterns - "Gang of Four"

Programming Language Pragmatics

Compilers - "The Dragon Book"

The Language of Mathematics

A Mathematician's Lament

The Joy of x

Mathematics: Its Content, Methods, and Meaning

Introduction to Algorithms (MIT)

If time isn't a factor, and you're not needing to steamroll into this to make money, then I'd highly encourage you to start by using a lower-level programming language like C first - or, start from the database side of things and begin learning SQL and playing around with database development.

I feel like truly understanding data structures from the lowest level is one of the most important things you can do as a budding developer.

Rework absolutly the best book about making a product when not actually about game dev.