The top five books I read in 2019
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."
Recently during a team building exercise, a colleague asked me how I deal with stress. I looked him in the eyes and said: "Jogging, martial arts, listening to music. Stopped briefly, smiled and finished with: "Reading. Reading helps and it's also good for personal development, and there's always something new to learn especially in the fast paced tech and startup world".
2019 was busier, more stressful and hectic than 2018, this in part explains why I managed to read more than the previous one and the other reason was the fact that I took part in three incubator and accelerators.
It's a norm that these programmes usually start emailing you reading lists on a weekly basis four weeks before the start of the programme in order to get everyone up to speed with the startup ecosystem.
From these numerous books I have decided to choose my favourite five and the freshest ones in my mind and write small excerpts about them.
It should go without saying that two or three paragraphs for each one of these books, doesn't make them justice. For some I've written longer pieces about them which can be found on my blog Daudex (I’m in the process of migrating some of the articles to here), for the others once I've cleared my email inbox and the meetings, and debugged some code, I may put some time aside and write pieces about them.
Meanwhile I hope the excerpts below will give you a taste of them and let you know what I thought about them.
1-Shoe Dog
This was my favourite book and one of the best surprises of the year. Phil Knight the founder of Nike is an excellent storyteller, a good salesman and a determined entrepreneur. It's rare to read a book so good and so compelling that you don't want to reach the end and it's even rarer to read a non fiction book that's so captivating. This book had been in my reading list for the last three years. It's very popular in the startup community and it's often listed as a must read for entrepreneurs, founders and business owners. However it usually stands out because the name Phil Knight doesn't have the resonance of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk in the startup ecosystem and Nike isn't a software or hardware company in this tech and IPO craze world.
Shoe Dog is the autobiography of Phil Knight the founder of Nike. He tells both his life story and the story of Nike which are intertwined to a big extent. From where the idea came from as a Stanford MBA student, to its humble beginnings as the reseller of Japanese running shoes in the USA, to the formation of Nike, the expansion in the USA and across the world, the cash flow problems, and ups and downs of building and then scaling up a business. What makes this book remarkable is how honest and detailed, and how much Phil shares throughout it both personally and professionally.
2-Secrets of Sand Hill Road
Hot off the press in 2019 and not just one of favourite reads of the year but one of my favourites of all times. This book surely deserves to be revisited as life evolves and progresses. It was personally published at the right time, as I was beginning to brush shoulders on a daily basis with VCs and investors, and I had to keep up with the steep learning curve.
Secrets of Sand Hill Road written by Scott Kupor, the managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz - one of the most successful venture capital firms in the world - provides an insightful view into the world of venture capital. If you have ever wondered what the excitement about venture capital, IPOs and tech unicorns, or how does the venture capital machine work, or if you're a founder or entrepreneur looking to raise capital from investors or a VC firm then this is the right book to pick up.
I wrote a longer review piece about this book on here Secrets of Sand Hill.
3-Blitzscaling
Blitzscaling was the most advertised and publicised startup book of 2018. The apex occurred when Reid Hoffman had a mini tour in London where he gave some talks at incubators and accelerators across London. I finally read the book over the first quarter of 2019.
Reid is one of the most recognisable names in the business world and his credentials speak for himself, and the exponential growth of startups such as Airbnb, Uber and WeWork made the book even more relevant to our day and age.
The book tries to answer the following question that has been running in my mind and I believe in the minds of many others especially for the last 2 or 3 years:
Why VC firms are pouring hundreds of millions and in some cases billions of dollars into startups which are unprofitable and which don't show any signs of ever becoming profitable?
The thesis of Hoffman, is that startups should place their focus and bet on the first mover advantage strategy, this is they should conquer as much of the market as possible and profitability will eventually come their way and the numbers will make sense.
As expected many people find this strategy insane, however it's a strategy which many VC firms especially in Silicon Valley, where capital is vastly abundant have embraced. Being the spearhead Softbank's $100 billion Vision Fund led by Masayoshi Son, one of the first investors in Jack Ma's Alibaba and who invested almost $11 billions in WeWork.
For an in more depth analysis Blitzscaling.
4-Think and Grow Rich
Why are some people financially successful while others live in abject poverty?
Are there secrets to becoming rich?
Are there any formulas or laws which can be used to create wealth?
These are questions that sociologists and academics have been trying to answer for as long as time is old.
Napoleon Hill spent 20 years travelling the US to interview the Warren Buffets and Aliko Dangotes of his generation: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, John D. Rockfeller and Thomas Edison just to name a few, and his aim was to uncover how or what principles were behind their wealth and success. Think and Grow Rich is the result of these interviews.
Hill argues that all of the interviewees’ wealth was the product of a secret formula made up of 13 principles and that anyone that follows these laws of success will achieve riches.
5-The Mom Test
In short for one of the shortest books I ever read: You shouldn't ask your mom whether the business idea that you're fascinated about is good or bad. Period.
She's your mom. She loves you. She cares about your feelings.
She will lie to you. She will mislead you. This is the sad reality.
Who says mom, says friends, colleagues, acquaintances and even strangers. People will often tell you what you want to hear and not what you ask.
Enter Rob Fitzpatrick with his Mom Test. Rob's mission is to teach you how to ask the right questions so you can get the right answers. The right answers not the answers that you'd like to hear.
Throughout the book Rob teaches the reader the set of questions to ask. What all of these questions have in common is that they cannot be leading in any way and you should share the least you can about the business idea.
Hasta la vista!
Dauda Barry