entrepreneur Book Summaries

Blue Ocean Strategy is about how to escape competition and create breakthrough business strategies. Kim and Mauborgne say we should look outside our traditional industry boundaries so we can truly innovate for our customers. We can find entirely new market demand, rather than fighting over old market share.

The Millionaire Fastlane is about getting wealthy and retiring in 10 years rather than 40 years. At first the title may sound unrealistic, but MJ DeMarco offers hard-earned business wisdom based on his success making millions of dollars after building a limousine booking website.

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big is about the hilarious wisdom and many business failures of Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. He shares pragmatic strategies for increasing our odds of success—by using systems over goals, building a talent stack and repeating (mysteriously powerful) affirmations.

Grinding It Out is about how McDonald's grew to be one of the biggest companies in the world. Ray Kroc did it through seizing the right opportunity, perfecting the fundamentals of the business, always emphasizing growth, and persisting until he found the successful strategy.

Contagious shows how entrepreneurs and marketers can make their content more viral and products more shareable. Jonah Berger simplified years of his research into six principles of contagiousness which are: social currency, triggers, emotion, public, practical value and stories.

The Lean Startup shows how to achieve business success by learning what customers want fast. Eric Ries explains how to launch a minimum viable product, why you should ignore vanity metrics, and how to use 'split-testing' to avoid wasting years of your life building a product nobody wants.