Starting a business is exciting – but it comes with plenty of challenges, and it can be hard to know where to begin. That’s why we’re delighted to launch a brand-new collection of business books, curated in partnership with the Digital Greenhouse.
As Guernsey’s hub for innovation, the Digital Greenhouse provides free, inclusive support for new businesses and entrepreneurs. They’ve drawn on all their expertise to create this list, selecting 25 books to inspire and guide anyone ready to start their business journey.
To explore why reading matters for entrepreneurs, and to find out more about a few key titles, we sat down with Development Officer Jenny de la Mare for a chat about the collection.
Click here to see the full list, and look out for them on a special shelf in the Clifton Room – just follow the Digital Greenhouse logo!
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If you had to describe the essence of Digital Greenhouse in 5 words, what would they be?
Collaborative, community, encouraging, business, innovation
What’s the most rewarding aspect of your role?
I really enjoy meeting people and hearing about the businesses they are working on. Their passion is infectious, and you want to see them succeed, so designing programmes and running workshops to support business owners feels like a real privilege. I also love connecting people.
What role do you think reading can play in supporting entrepreneurs and start-ups?
There are so many amazing resources and way to access content about starting a business and innovating - online articles, podcasts, YouTube, etc. But it can be overwhelming. Often when I go online to look for one thing I end up down a rabbit hole and looking at a totally different thing. Whereas I find with books, not only are they a source of trusted information, some of the authors of this collection have a wealth of knowledge and experience starting businesses, but you can really focus on a topic.
One thing I love about this collection is some of the relatable examples and practical advice - I go back time and again to reference them. Nail It, Then Scale It, for example, is a great book for reminding businesses to stay 'problem-centric'. This is where the opportunity lies! At any stage of starting a business it can be easy to get carried away with idea generation and building a solution before really understanding the problem.
Do you have a favourite book on the list – and why?
Following the social media hype, the most recent book that I read from this collection is What’s Your Dream? by Simon Squibb. I wanted to know what all of the fuss was about but actually so many of the concepts he talks about are things we cover in our startup support programmes so I really rate it. His whole approach is to break down how to start a business into accessible steps and is based on the premise that anyone can start a business doing something they love.
An older favourite, but also in a similar vein is the 48-hour Start-Up by Fraser Doherty, it's very easy and engaging to read.
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Here are 6 of the Top Reads for Startups as recommended by Digital Greenhouse. Click the titles to reserve them or click here to see the full list.
1. What’s Your Dream? - Simon Squibb
What's your dream? It's a simple question, but one which very few of us ever really think about.
From early on, we are taught that there's only one path to getting ahead: do well at school, get a certain kind of job, and avoid failure at all costs. We're so busy trying to follow these rules that we never stop and ask ourselves: What's my purpose? What do I really want? Do I have the power to make it happen?
Simon Squibb is on a mission to change people's lives for the better. Here, he shares the hard-won life lessons from his years in the business world plus his own personal life, from facing homelessness as a teenager to selling a multi-million pound business, and now inspiring a new generation of budding entrepreneurs. Simon will empower readers to identify their own meaningful goals, to remove the barriers that stand in the way, and ultimately to build a richer life. Sometimes, it just takes one person to believe in you...
2. The Right It - Alberto Savoia
The Law of Market Failure: Most new products will fail in the market, even if competently executed.
Using his experience at Google, his remarkable success as an entrepreneur and consultant, and insights from his lectures at Stanford University and Google, Alberto Savoia’s The Right It offers an unparalleled approach to beating the beast that is market failure.
If you are currently working to develop a new idea, whether on your own or as part of a team, which group are you in? Most people believe that they either are, or will be, in the first group—the group whose ideas will be successful. All they have to do is work hard and execute well. Unfortunately, we know that this cannot be the case. The law of market failure tells us that up to 90 percent of most new products, services, businesses, and initiatives will fail soon after they are launched—regardless of how promising they sound, how much we commit to them, or how well we execute them. This is a hard fact to accept. We believe that other people fail because they don’t know what they are doing. Somehow, we believe that this does not apply to us and to our idea—especially if we’ve experienced victories in the past.
Filled with detailed case studies, a lesson on creating your own hard data, a strategy for market engagement, and an introduction to the concept of a pretotype (not a prototype), The Right It is a groundbreaking, entertaining, and highly practical book delivers a proven formula for turning ideas, products, services, and businesses into successful endeavors.
3. Nail It Then Scale It - Nathan Burr and Paul Ahlstrom
NISI answers key questions including: Why do most new businesses fail? What first steps do successful serial entrepreneurs take? What are the most common failure traps and how can I avoid them?
Based on years of research and observation, Furr and Ahlstrom conclude that startups often fail by doing the “right things,” but doing them out of order. In other words, human nature combined with entrepreneurial drive puts the entrepreneur on autopilot to become part of the 70% to 90% of ventures that fail. From Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs, the Nail It Then Scale It method is based on pattern recognition of the timeless principles and key practices used by successful entrepreneurs to repeatedly innovate. These processes and principles have now been distilled into a handbook to guide entrepreneurs step by step to victory.
Stop following conventional wisdom and join the few entrepreneurs that consistently take their innovative ideas all the way to a successful product and company launch.
4. The Cold Start Problem - Andrew Chen
Why do some products take off? And what can we learn from them?
The hardest part of launching a product is getting started. When you have just an idea and a handful of customers, growth can feel impossible. This is the cold start problem.
Now, one of Silicon Valley's most esteemed investors uncovers how any product can surmount the cold start problem - by harnessing the hidden power of network effects. Drawing on interviews with the founders of Uber, LinkedIn, Airbnb and Zoom, Andrew Chen reveals how any start-up can launch, scale and thrive.
5. The Innovator's Dilemma - Clayton Christensen
is work is cited by the world's best-known thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell. In this classic bestseller—one of the most influential business books of all time—innovation expert Clayton Christensen shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right yet still lose market leadership.
Now with a foreword by Marc Benioff, the cofounder and CEO of Salesforce, Christensen explains why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. No matter the industry, he says, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know how and when to abandon traditional business practices.
Offering both successes and failures from leading companies as a guide, The Innovator’s Dilemma gives you a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.
6. Design a Better Business - Patrick Van Der Pijl, Justin Lokitz, et al.
This book stitches together a complete design journey from beginning to end in a way that you’ve likely never seen before, guiding readers (you) step-by-step in a practical way from the initial spark of an idea all the way to scaling it into a better business. Design a Better Business includes a comprehensive set of tools (over 20 total!) and skills that will help you harness opportunity from uncertainty by building the right team(s) and balancing your point of view against new findings from the outside world.
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