When people ask me to give them advice about getting into startups, I direct them to these bits of writing.
There is loads of stuff out there which can help get an understanding of how "startups" are different from other service businesses, and how to approach trying to start one. Here are my top picks:
- All of Paul Graham's essays are excellent, but in particular:
- How To Get Startup Ideas N.B. it is useful to compare Graham's advice to the advice given in Slava Akhmechet's How to pick startup ideas
- Startup = Growth
- What Startups are Really Like
- Before The Startup
- Stanford "How To Start A Startup" video series some of this is irrelevant (particularly the later ones) but these are really great speakers, and you get a good flavour of how to do things
- Eric Ries "The Lean Startup" (full book in my Dropbox) A classic, must-read book on processes and startup thinking. The second half is mostly pointless, so skip it.
- Steve Blank's Udacity Course "How To Build a Startup" (free) - wonderful talk-through of lean principles, from the man who came up with them
- Peter Thiel "Zero To One" (book) mind-bendingly good book about "how to build the future"
- This article which describes the "Cross-10" principle more eloquently than I could