Entrepreneur books that made Apiumhub grow

The most successful people get to where they are through constant learning. No matter how experienced you are as an entrepreneur, you can always benefit from highlighting something useful from entrepreneurs’ experience. Maybe you need a little inspiration to rev up your engines, or you could find how to be a better manager and bring your business to new heights. Whatever entrepreneurial experience you need, sitting down and reading one of these entrepreneur books can be one of the best ways to get it.

Our CEO is a President of EO organization Barcelona Chapter and he has meetings with leading entrepreneurs on a weekly basis. He always says that he is grateful to this organization because there they have a “reading club” and that’s where they can discuss entrepreneur books they have read and share their own experiences. 

Evgeny keeps saying that thanks to EO and these books he is where he is, he owns three companies where he is CEO and Board Member: Apiumhub, Apium Academy and VYou. And here you have our list with his favorite entrepreneur books, each one of them brings something different to the table.

Entrepreneur books that had a significant impact on me

1. 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

It’s not a book you can read once, pick up a few tips, and be on your way. Instead, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is a book to continually revisit as you grow as an entrepreneur and build your business. More than 15 million copies has been sold  since it was first published in 2004. The book presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity – principles that give us the security to adapt to change, and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.

2. “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz

Horowitz wants to let aspiring entrepreneurs know that building a business is much harder than just executing on an idea. In “The Hard Thing About Hard Things,” Horowitz explains that even the most prestigious business schools can’t teach you how to deal with the toughest problems that come with building and running a startup. Horowitz analyzes the problems that business owners confront on a day-to-day basis and shares insight on how to deal with them.

Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley’s most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup. 

While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. He puts you in the CEO mentality by sharing his entrepreneurial story of how he overcame the competition and cultivated success.

It’s a great read for entrepreneurs looking for a mentor to guide them through their journey. This book isn’t censored – it’s the real truth about being an entrepreneur.

3. Principles by Ray Dalio

In Principles, author Ray Dalio shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life and business. Through these principles, Dalio shows that any person or organization can achieve their goals. Dalio founded the investment firm, which has become one of the largest and best performing hedge funds in the world. This book became #1 New York Times Bestseller

“Significant…The book is both instructive and surprisingly moving.” —The New York Times

Dalio himself has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater’s exceptionally effective culture, which he describes as “an idea meritocracy that strives to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical transparency.” 

4. Traction by Gino Wickman

Do you have a grip on your business, or does your business have a grip on you? All entrepreneurs and business leaders face similar frustrations – personnel conflict, profit woes, and inadequate growth. Decisions never seem to get made, or, once made, fail to be properly implemented. But there is a solution. It’s not complicated or theoretical.The Entrepreneurial Operating System is a practical method for achieving the business success you have always envisioned. In Traction, you’ll learn the secrets of strengthening the six key components of your business. You’ll discover simple yet powerful ways to run your company that will give you and your leadership team more focus, more growth, and more enjoyment. 

5. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox

The Goal  is transforming management thinking throughout the world. The Goal is a management-oriented novel by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, a business consultant known for his theory of constraints, and Jeff Cox, an author of multiple management-oriented novels. This book can be used for case studies in operations management, with a focus geared towards the theory of constraints, bottlenecks and how to alleviate them, and applications of these concepts in real life. It is used in management colleges to teach students about the importance of strategic capacity planning and constraint management. Time Magazine listed the book as one of “The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books.”

6. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni 

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams. Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the very heart of why teams even the best ones-often struggle. He outlines a powerful model and actionable steps that can be used to overcome these common hurdles and build a cohesive, effective team. Just as with his other books, Lencioni has written a compelling fable with a powerful yet deceptively simple message for all those who strive to be exceptional team leaders.

7. The Surrender Experiment: My Journey Into Life’s Perfection by Mickey A. Singer 

From the author of the New York Times #1 bestseller The Untethered Soul comes this thought-provoking, inspirational memoir on the magic that happens when you just let go.

Spirituality is meant to bring about harmony and peace. But the diversity of our philosophies, beliefs, concepts, and views about the soul often leads to confusion. To reconcile the noise that clouds spirituality, Michael Singer combines accounts of his own life journey to enlightenment—from his years as a hippie-loner to his success as a computer program engineer to his work in spiritual and humanitarian efforts—with lessons on how to put aside conflicting beliefs, let go of worries, and transform misdirected desires. Singer provides a road map to a new way of living not in the moment, but to exist in a state of perpetual happiness.

8. Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow, Bo Burlingham

Most business owners started their company because they wanted more freedom—to work on their own schedules, make the kind of money they deserve, and eventually retire on the fruits of their labor. Unfortunately, according to John Warrillow, most owners find that stepping out of the picture is extremely difficult because their business relies too heavily on their personal involvement. Without them, their company—no matter how big or profitable—is essentially worthless. But the good news is that entrepreneurs can take specific steps—no matter what stage a business is in—to create a valuable, sellable company. Warrillow shows exactly what it takes to create a solid business that can thrive long into the future.

9. Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman, Chris Yeh, Bill Gates 

LinkedIn cofounder, legendary investor, and host of the award-winning Masters of Scale podcast reveals the secret to starting and scaling massively valuable companies. What entrepreneur or founder doesn’t aspire to build the next Amazon, Facebook, or Airbnb?  Yet those who actually manage to do so are exceedingly rare.  So what separates the startups that get disrupted and disappear from the ones who grow to become global giants? The secret is blitzscaling: a set of techniques for scaling up. The objective of Blitzscaling is not to go from zero to one, but from one to one billion – as quickly as possible.

I hope you find this list useful!