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SaaS & Software
Building and selling software businesses.
0 guides · 1 tools · 21 books
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Books in the library
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management
by Will Larson
An Elegant Puzzle offers engineering founders leadership lessons on systems thinking for team sizing, technical debt management, and succession planning in high-growth environments. Key principles include organizational design frameworks and cross-functional collaboration for effective team building. Vs High Output Management, it delivers specialized tactics for engineering leaders navigating hypergrowth.
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
by Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister
Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister's classic on managing software teams. Essential insights on productivity, environment, and team dynamics that remain relevant decades later.
The Mythical Man-Month
by Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr.
Fred Brooks' classic on software project management, essential for software company managers.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
by Frederick Phillips Brooks Jr.
Fred Brooks's timeless classic on software project management and why adding people to late projects makes them later. Essential for technical founders managing engineering teams.
Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track
by Will Larson
A comprehensive guide for engineers seeking to advance their careers as individual contributors. Will Larson provides real-world insights on navigating the staff engineer role, understanding different archetypes, and maximizing impact without becoming a manager.
The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million
by Mark Roberge
HubSpot's Chief Revenue Officer Mark Roberge shares the data-driven playbook that took HubSpot from zero to $100 million. Essential for B2B SaaS founders building scalable sales organizations.
The SaaS Playbook
by Rob Walling
A tactical playbook for bootstrapping and scaling a successful SaaS startup without relying on venture capital. It covers idea validation, pricing, product-led growth, sales, and operations with a focus on sustainable, profitable growth—making it highly relevant for startup founders, especially in software and SaaS.
The Startup CTO's Handbook: Essential skills and best practices for high performing engineering teams
by Zach Goldberg
A practical guide for startup founders and technical leaders on how to build, grow, and manage high-performing engineering teams. It covers the essential skills, processes, and best practices a CTO needs in an early-stage and scaling startup, including hiring, culture, architecture decisions, and collaboration with the broader founding team.
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn
by Richard Wesley Hamming
A manual for building great ideas based on Richard Hamming's legendary course at the Naval Postgraduate School. The book offers a unique style of thinking by which breakthrough innovations are conceived, covering topics from science and engineering to creativity and learning throughout one's career.
Subscribed
by Tien Tzuo & Gabe Weisert
Subscribed: Why the Subscription Model Will Be Your Company’s Future - and What to Do About It by Tien Tzuo is a business book that explains how to build and grow subscription-based companies, covering recurring revenue, customer lifetime value, and business model transformation—highly relevant for startup founders designing scalable SaaS and subscription startups.
The Automatic Customer
by John Warrillow
A business book by John Warrillow that explains how to build recurring-revenue and subscription-based business models, making it highly relevant for startup founders designing scalable, predictable revenue streams.
Intercom on Product Management
Intercom's collected wisdom on building products customers love. Short, practical essays from a company that scaled to serve over 25,000 businesses.
Zero to Sold: How to Start, Run, and Sell a Bootstrapped Business
by Arvid Kahl
Arvid Kahl's comprehensive guide to building, growing, and successfully exiting a bootstrapped SaaS business, based on his experience building and selling FeedbackPanda.
Don't Hire a Software Developer Until You Read this Book
by Kemi Kukoyi
K.N. Kukoyi's guide is essential for tech startup founders, offering insights into hiring software developers and managing tech projects effectively. It's a practical resource for navigating the complexities of tech entrepreneurship.
Extreme Programming Explained
by Kent Beck
"Extreme Programming Explained" by Kent Beck is described by Babak Nivi (founder of AngelList and Venture Hacks) as revelatory. The book advocates developing products using extreme programming practices unless the founder has specific superior experience.
How to Transform Your Ideas into Software Products
by Poornima Vijayashanker
This book by Poornima Vijayashanker provides practical advice for ideation and prototyping, making it an essential read for those looking to turn ideas into successful software products. It's particularly useful for startups aiming to get new projects off the ground quickly.
The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
by Gene Kim & Kevin Behr & George Spafford
Gene Kim's business novel revealing how DevOps principles can transform IT organizations and drive business success.
Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software
by Nadia Eghbal
An examination of modern open source software development by Nadia Eghbal that explores how the dynamics of open source have evolved over the past two decades. Drawing on hundreds of developer interviews and platform analyses, the book reveals insights applicable to all individual creators on the internet.
From Impossible to Inevitable
by Aaron Ross & Jason Lemkin
This book by Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin provides strategic insights into achieving rapid growth in startups, particularly in the SaaS industry. It offers guidance on overcoming growth roadblocks, creating a niche, and building a scalable sales team, drawing on examples from successful companies like Salesforce and HubSpot.
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
by Jeff Sutherland
By Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of the Scrum framework, with J.J. Sutherland (2014, Crown Business), this book explains the agile management approach used widely in software and beyond. It argues that short cycles, clear priorities, and daily check-ins dramatically increase team output.
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps
by Nicole Forsgren
By Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim (2018, IT Revolution Press), this book uses years of research (the DORA metrics) to show which engineering practices actually predict faster, more reliable software delivery and better business performance.