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5 Books That Impact Our Views On Business

There are a ton of available books written to help you with your business. These books range from self-help books to technical guides and can be either specialized to a niche or more broad in scope. While many of these are helpful, the books we’re listing here have not only helped us with particular aspects of our business, but they’ve also helped shape the way we view our business or our markets in general. These books have had an effect on our views long after we’ve read them and, a couple of them, we’ve read over and over again to help ingrain them even further. We hope you’re able to find as much value from these books as they’ve been to us:

1. The 4-Hour Work Week
Author: Tim Ferriss

Love him or hate him, Tim Ferriss is the master of self-promotion and provides in detail the steps and processes you can take to join the “New Rich”. His thoughts on lifestyle design and breaking down exactly what you want in terms of income to achieve your goals is not groundbreaking, but is written in such a way that it promotes action and can push you to take those first steps.

For us, the principles laid out in this book inspired and ultimately led to us both quitting our jobs, moving halfway around the world and setting up our own international company. Since then we’ve been lucky enough to travel for extended periods of time throughout Asia with our business (mostly) on auto-pilot. This is a must-read.

2. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

Author: Thomas Friedman

Thomas Friedman breaks down and lays out the history of outsourcing. What’s particularly interesting is his examples of how outsourcing has gone from something available to only the large multinationals to an industry that’s revolutionizing mid-sized businesses and even Mom and Pop brick and mortars. It’s amazing the things that can be outsourced and his insights on the future of outsourcing have helped shape our outsourcing business and the way we provide service to our partners.

3. Free: The Future Of A Radical Price

Author: Chris Anderson

This book helps explain the generational gap that exists between those who expect things for free and those who are distrustful in them. What’s particularly interesting to us is that I (Justin) am much more accepting of free software, free services, etc. while my business partner (Joe) always seems to be looking for a catch. It helps explain why millions have used Napster and later P2P software to download millions of files while those same people wouldn’t be caught dead robbing from their local video store. On all of our larger products, we now take the “What if the price drops to free” approach, knowing that building the users by offering free value will lead to monetization methods down the road.

4. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Ever wonder why some ideas or products seem to gain traction and others don’t? How to build “stickiness” to your product or service in a market that’s over saturated? Malcolm takes a scientific case study approach to things that seem to come from nowhere in our society. One of the best things you can take from this book is the description of the various players in a tipping point (Connectors, Mavens, and Salespeople) and how you can find and use those various personality types to promote your product or service.

5. Seth Godin’s Blog
Author: Seth Godin

Seth is just amazing. His succinct blog posts are bite-sized, but packed full of valuable, insightful information. His writing can be a little painful or controversial, but his insights and view on things will definitely have you questioning your approach, your motivations, etc. If you’re looking to make your product, your service, or yourself stand out, you need to learn to be remarkable. Go ahead…be that purple cow!

Honorable Mentions:
Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (And What It Says About Us)
Paul Graham’s Essays
RESERVED (Have any recommendations?)

While this list is far from exhaustive, reading these books might just change your view on your business, your personal life, and the world in general.

If you would like us to advise you on which business model is right for you schedule a criteria call with one of our business analysts today. We are happy to help you discover the type of business that’s right for you.

Have any books to add? Let us know and we might add it to the list!

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