I was on a panel discussion last week for the Southwest Venture Forum in Dallas, TX, where I mentioned my startup reading list of books and blogs I like. Since a lot of entrepreneurs came up to me afterwards to ask about those names, I figured i would post them here. I hope you learn as much as I have from them.
Blogs:
Several VCs have started their own blogs and I have added many of them to my RSS Reader. These blogs provide great insights into the world of venture capital, what it takes to succeed, what their portfolio companies are doing right or wrong, trends they think will be big, and how they evaluate technologies, among other things. These guys have a lot more experience than we do on what it takes to succeed, so their advice is a gold mine. I only wish more VCs would share their lessons with the rest of us.
Feld Thoughts- awesome! He has had some great posts about term sheets.
Venture Chronicles by Jeff Nolan - awesome! He has had some great posts about what he has learned from portfolio companies, what he thinks about all kinds of issues that startups face, etc.
BeyondVC awesome! great insights into all kinds of issues startups face.
VentureBlog - very good.
Allen’s Blog - great list of the 10 commandments for entrepreneurs
Books:
Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki
Awesome! - Best book I’ve read so far on the subject
Fundamentals of Venture Capital - Joseph Bartlett
A slim book that discusses the legal sides of raising money. Very good info in here.
Startup - Jerry Kaplan
Story of Jerry building the first PDA. Great insight into the struggle of starting your own company.
Done Deals – VCs tell their Stories – Udayan Gupta
The top VCs telling their story on what they look for. Since you should be evaluating the VC as much as they are evaluating you, this is good for due diligence.
High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner’s Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars – Charles Ferguson
The story of starting Vermeer and its eventual sale to Microsoft to become FrontPage.
The Perfect Store – Inside ebay - Adam Cohen
An interesting acccount of how ebay was started and grew to become one of the most successful internet companies today
New Venture Creation – Jeffrey Timmons
More of a textbook for entrepreneurship classes, but has a lot of good info.
Venture Capital at the Crossroads – Bygrave & Timmons
More theoretical, but some very good chapters - particularly the one on Marketing Myopia.