Here is some recommended reading you might enjoy. Many of the concepts presented in this course have been drawn from these influential books and blogs.
Books
How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you. An indispensable guide to how to correctly conduct Customer Development interviews.
This book by Eric Ries is the source of many of the concepts and terms that have become part of everyday conversations around Silicon Valley. Nice, easy read.
Steve Blank's seminal work. If you want to read the background thinking behind The Lean Startup, this is it (warning: it's a bit dense and a bit hard to read — Eric Ries's book above distills the same concepts down into more readable form).
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
This book by Ben Horowitz is one of my favorites. Funny, profane, and insightful.
This book is from long-time Silicon Valley venture capitalist Bruce Cleveland. As a VC, he's seen how many startups manage to raise a little bit of early funding, but never get enough traction to succeed and raise more money — and so they die. He develops and presents a compelling framework for crossing that gap.
Getting to WOW! Silicon Valley Pitch Secrets
Written by BUS-217 student Angelika Blendstrup and a VC friend, this is a guide to crafting a clear, compelling, credible pitch.
Building a Successful Social Venture
An excellent book by two experts on creating "hybrid organizations" that are run partly for economic results and partly for social impact. All over the globe today, social ventures are creating impact and changing lives.
Written by the founders of Patagonia, this is an excellent book about what it means to be a responsible company, and how to go about creating one.
Despite the odd name, this is a terrific book on mastering business presentations, by the brilliant professor Tim Calkins of The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Steven Hoffman runs Founders Space here in the Bay Area, and recently wrote this book on innovation and entrepreneurship. It's an easy read — you'll finish it in one airplane flight.
A seminal book. Came out many years ago, but the concepts still hold. Potential investors are going to ask you how you plan to "cross the chasm" and you better know what they are talking about!
A personal favorite. While not specifically about business, this book by Malcolm Gladwell is a fascinating read, filled with insights that are applicable to marketing and communications for any business.
Subtitled "A handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers" — this is a must-have if you are using (or want to understand) the business model canvas.
This ground-breaking book looks at how companies can do everything right, become market leaders, and then still fail. The concept of "disruptive technologies" is discussed a lot in Silicon Valley these days, and much of the current thinking comes from this book.
Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development
Subtitled "A cheat sheet to the four steps to epiphany," this is a great little book which synthesizes Steve Blank's methodologies down in a nice, simple, easy-to-understand way. Very well-written and well worth the price. Easy airplane read.
Blogs & Articles
Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures in NYC is a great one to follow.
Ben Horowitz at Andreessen Horowitz also writes a great blog.
Great essays by Paul Graham of Y-Combinator.
Last but not least: an excellent Harvard Business Review article by the inimitable Steve Blank.