The shelf.
The books I hand to founders. Start with the EOS four; after that, jump to whichever chapter of the journey you're in.
START HERE
Traction
The complete operating system: vision, people, data, issues, process, traction. I've run it at multiple companies, including through a hyper-growth run that ended in an exit. If you read one book on this page, read this one.
Rocket Fuel
The visionary and the integrator, named and explained: one of you dreams, one of you builds the machine that ships the dream. Most companies have the first without the second. This is the seat I sit in, so it doubles as my job description.
Get a Grip
Traction retold as a novel: a leadership team implementing the system with all the friction real companies actually feel. Give it to the skeptic on your team who will never read a framework book.
How to Be a Great Boss
Management stripped to what actually works: the right people in the right seats, clear expectations, and the truth delivered often. Short enough to hand a first-time manager on Friday and discuss on Monday.
BEFORE YOU LEAP
The E-Myth Revisited
Work on the business, not just in it: build the systems so the company runs without the founder's heroics. The oldest idea on this shelf and still the one most founders resist.
Start with Why
Customers and employees commit to the why long before the what. It forces you to articulate purpose before roadmap; most companies pitch backwards.
Find Your Why
The workbook to Start with Why: a real process for digging the why out of your own story, alone or with a team. Do the exercise; the sentence you end up with is worth the weekend.
Why Startups Fail
An autopsy of the patterns that kill funded startups: wrong early hires, premature scaling, products nobody validated. Cheaper to read the catalog than to live an entry in it.
LEADING PEOPLE, AND YOURSELF
Leaders Eat Last
People perform when they feel safe, and they feel safe when leaders absorb risk instead of passing it down. Pairs with the right-people, right-seats discipline.
Crucial Conversations
The mechanics of saying the hard thing while it's still cheap to say: make it safe, lead with facts, keep it a dialogue. Most operational failures I've seen trace back to a conversation somebody dodged.
Twelve and a Half
The soft skills that actually run a business: empathy, accountability, patience, and the candor that keeps them honest. Ingredients, not slogans.
Deep Work
The case for protecting the hours where real work happens, in a world engineered to shred them. I run my calendar on it, and I judge companies by whether their best people get any.
THE MONEY
Venture Deals
How financing actually works: terms, leverage, and who sits where at the table. Read it before your first term sheet, not after; knowing the mechanics is the difference between a partner and a passenger.
The Great Game of Business
Jack Stack taught a factory floor to read a P&L and act like owners. Open the books; people play harder when they can see the scoreboard and share in the wins.
THE LONG GAME
Built to Last
The habits of companies that outlive their founders: a core ideology that never moves, and everything else open to change. Build the clock, don't just tell the time.
Great by Choice
Why some companies thrive in chaos while equals die in it: fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, productive paranoia. The steady march in bad weather is traction by another name.
The Infinite Game
Business isn't a tournament with a final whistle; the goal is to keep playing. That lens changes how you treat people, rivals, and quarters, and it pairs well with a ten-year vision.
EARNING ATTENTION
Crush It
The original case for building a personal brand around what you actually know. Fifteen years on, it reads like a prediction that came true.
The Thank You Economy
Scale never excuses you from caring. The internet made word of mouth loud again, so out-care the competition.
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
Give value again and again before you ever ask for anything. It reads like social media tactics, but underneath it's a philosophy of generosity that compounds.
Crushing It
The 2009 playbook, proven: retold through people who ran it and won. Hand it to the skeptic who thinks personal brands are vanity.
Day Trading Attention
Attention is the asset; buy it where it is underpriced today, not where it was cheap five years ago. The most current thinking on the shelf.