5 Books Every Entrepreneur Needs to Read (Unless You Enjoy Learning Things the Hard Way)

Sometimes, the best business advice comes from a book, not your "guru" friend selling NFTs.

So, you’ve decided to become an entrepreneur. Congrats! 🎉 That means you’ve also signed up for stress, sleepless nights, and an endless cycle of figuring things out as you go.

Entrepreneurship is basically like playing a video game on hard mode—except instead of respawning, you just lose a lot of money when you make a mistake.

The good news? You don’t have to figure everything out the hard way. Smart people have already written books filled with business wisdom, and reading them is like getting a cheat code for success.

So, if you’re serious about building a business (or just want to sound smarter in coffee shop conversations), here are five must-read books that will teach you essential entrepreneurial skills—without putting you to sleep.

1. The Lean Startup – Eric Ries

💡 Skill You’ll Learn: How to build a business without wasting time and money on dumb ideas.

You know that dream business idea you have? There’s a 90% chance it won’t work out the way you think. (Sorry, but someone had to say it.) The Lean Startup teaches you how to test ideas quickly, adapt to feedback, and avoid wasting time building things nobody wants.

🔹 Key Takeaways:

✔️ Build fast, test fast, fail fast. (But fail in a way that doesn’t ruin your life.)

✔️ Customers don’t care about your genius idea—only about how it helps them.

✔️ MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is your best friend. Start small, improve as you go.

🔥 Why You Need This Book: If you don’t want to waste years and thousands of dollars launching a product that nobody wants, read this before you start.

2. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert Cialdini

💡 Skill You’ll Learn: How to sell, market, and convince people to care about what you’re offering.

If you want to succeed in business, you need to know how to persuade people—whether it’s convincing investors to fund your startup, customers to buy your product, or your mom to stop asking why you don’t have a “real job.”

🔹 Key Takeaways:

✔️ People buy based on psychology, not logic. (Marketing tricks work for a reason.)

✔️ The six principles of persuasion (social proof, scarcity, reciprocity, authority, commitment, and liking).

✔️ Why you keep buying things you don’t need just because they’re on sale.

🔥 Why You Need This Book: Even if you have the best product in the world, if you don’t know how to sell it, your business will fail. This book teaches you how to get inside people’s heads and make them say yes.

3. The $100 Startup – Chris Guillebeau

💡 Skill You’ll Learn: How to start a profitable business with little to no money.

Think you need a ton of money, a fancy MBA, or an investor backing your startup? Wrong. The $100 Startup proves that you can start a successful business with almost no money—just a good idea and a smart approach.

🔹 Key Takeaways:

✔️ Forget complicated business plans—just start.

✔️ You can turn skills you already have into a business. (Yes, even that weird hobby you think no one cares about.)

✔️ How to launch a side hustle that makes real money.

🔥 Why You Need This Book: If you’re broke but want to start making money online or with a side hustle, this book gives you real-life examples of people who did it successfully.

4. The E-Myth Revisited – Michael E. Gerber

💡 Skill You’ll Learn: How to build a business that doesn’t fall apart when you’re not around.

Most entrepreneurs start a business thinking, I’m great at this skill, so I’ll start a company doing it! Then they realize running a business is not the same as having a skill. This book teaches you how to systemize your business so you don’t end up doing everything yourself forever.

🔹 Key Takeaways:

✔️ Most small businesses fail because their owners never step out of “worker mode.”

✔️ Create systems and processes so your business runs itself.

✔️ If you’re doing all the work yourself, you don’t have a business—you have a job.

🔥 Why You Need This Book: If you ever want to take a vacation without your business collapsing, you need to learn how to delegate and build systems.

5. The 4-Hour Workweek – Tim Ferriss

💡 Skill You’ll Learn: How to escape the 9-5 grind and build a business that gives you freedom (not just money).

If you started your business to escape the rat race, only to find yourself working 16-hour days with no breaks, you need this book. The 4-Hour Workweek is all about how to automate, outsource, and work smarter instead of harder.

🔹 Key Takeaways:

✔️ Outsource everything that isn’t essential. (Your time is too valuable for busywork.)

✔️ How to earn passive income so you can work less and live more.

✔️ Travel the world while running a business remotely.

🔥 Why You Need This Book: If you ever dream of having time freedom instead of just money, this book teaches you how to set up your business so it doesn’t control your life.

Which Book Should You Read First?

Here’s the quick breakdown:

✔️ If you’re just starting out and don’t want to waste time: Read The Lean Startup.

✔️ If you want to master persuasion and sales: Read Influence.

✔️ If you need to start a business on a tiny budget: Read The $100 Startup.

✔️ If you’re tired of doing everything yourself: Read The E-Myth Revisited.

✔️ If you want to work smarter, not harder: Read The 4-Hour Workweek.

No matter what kind of entrepreneur you want to be, these books will save you time, money, and unnecessary headaches.