Books Recommended by Eric Ries
Eric Ries is an American entrepreneur and author, known for his bestselling book The Lean Startup, and for creating the Lean Startup methodology, that helps individuals and companies around the world build businesses.
In 2019, Eric was focused on his role as founder and CEO of Long-Term Stock Exchange, a company he founded in 2012 as an option for new companies who want to raise capital while staying focused on the long-term instead of short-term results.
He has founded several startups and has been a business and product adviser for startups, VC firms, and large companies, including GE. He has also served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School, IDEO and Pivotal.
Eric studied at Yale and during that time he co-founded the online forum for university students Catalyst Recruiting. He took a leave of absence to focus on his project, but Catalyst Recruiting failed not long after that.
He moved to Silicon Valley in 2001 as a software engineer working for There, Inc. He worked at the company until 2003, when they launched There.com, a web-based 3D Virtual World product. Not long after, the company failed.
One year later, Eric and one of There.com’s founders created the social network IMVU, that aimed to integrate instant messaging with the high revenue per customer of traditional video games. They managed to raise $19 million from venture fundraising in 2006.
In 2008, Eric stepped down as CTO from IMVU as a new CEO joined the company, remaining as a board observer.
Eric developed the lean startup methodology, where he shares principles to help startups succeed. He started documenting this methodology extensively on his blog and in 2011, he launched the book named The Lean Startup, which has sold millions of copies and has been translated into more than thirty languages.
In 2015, Eric released the book The Leader’s Guide through Kickstarter, raising $588,903 for its publication.
Two years later, he published the follow-up of his first book, titled The Startup Way, which shows the application of entrepreneurial principles in larger corporate environments.
All books recommended (or written) by Eric Ries:
Books by Eric Ries
14 books recommended by Eric Ries
The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work
by Scott Berkun
Most talk of the future of work is just speculation, but Berkun has actually worked there. The Year Without Pants is a brilliant, honest, and funny insider's story of life at a great company.
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
by Richard Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein
A pioneer in behavioral economics and just recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, his classic book on how to make better decisions.
The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact
by Chip Heath, Dan Heath
What if we could design experiences that have real impact for our families, our customers and employees? Master storytellers Chip and Dan Heath show how.
Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success
In an increasingly erratic business landscape where new competition can emerge overnight, customers’ loyalties can shift unexpectedly, and markets are constantly being disrupted, finding growth solutions fast is crucial for survival. Hacking Growth provides a compelling answer to this urgent need for speed, offering companies a methodology for finding and optimizing new strategies to increase their market share and quickly.
Startup Boards: Getting the Most Out of Your Board of Directors
by Brad Feld, Mahendra Ramsinghani
In addition to walking you through, in great detail, how a board functions, Brad has adopted many of the Lean Startup approaches to building, operating, and managing your board in a way that resembles continuous deployments. Any practitioner of Lean Startup would do well to use this approach to building their board.
Entering StartUpLand: An Essential Guide to Finding the Right Job
Just as the The Lean Startup has become a must-read for founders, Entering StartUpLand should be required reading for any joiner. The book is a sweeping and insightful view into a startup's full range of operations and entry points. I highly recommend it.
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz
A fantastic, proven formula for moving from idea to prototyping to decision making within five days, based on a process he developed while working at Google and later GV.
Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery
by Scott Kelly
Kelly spent a record-breaking year in space and this book is a fascinating account of that time and what he learned about humanity and himself.
Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change
by Ellen Pao
A prominent whistleblower chronicles her experience fighting discrimination against women and people of color in tech.
The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams
by Sam Walker
A fascinating book about the one thing that the greatest sports teams in history have in common and the critical aspects of leadership they share.
WTF?: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us
by Tim O'Reilly
An important examination on how technology can shape a better future by one of the smartest thinkers on the subject.
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice
by Bill Browder
This reads like a thriller, but is an urgent and important story about the dangers of Putin’s Russia and the events leading to the Magnitsky Act.
Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth
by Ash Maurya
Follow up to his book Running Lean, that shows how to successfully make the leap from startup to sustainable business.
The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt
An esteemed Stanford professor offers researched-back advice for managing asshole colleagues and bosses, and how to know recognize when the office asshole might be you.