#tag
Venture Capital
How VCs think and invest.
3 guides · 0 tools · 46 books
Simple guides
Fundraising basics
Raising money means selling part of your company. Understand the terms before you sign.
Term sheets, explained
A term sheet is a short document setting out the key terms of an investment before the legal paperwork.
Angels vs VCs vs bootstrapping
Different money comes with different expectations — choose the kind that fits your business.
Essential sources
Books in the library
Out of the Crisis
by William Edwards Deming
Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming is highlighted by Roger Ehrenberg of IA Ventures as critical for startup founders. The book emphasizes respecting employees, focusing on process, and collecting and analyzing data, applicable to businesses of any size.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
by Ben Horowitz
Ben Horowitz shares practical wisdom from his experience as a CEO and VC, covering the toughest challenges of startup leadership, including hard decisions, managing turmoil, and building resilient companies.
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
by Tony Fadell
A practical startup and product-building book by Tony Fadell that shares hard-won lessons from building world-changing products at Apple, Nest, and other ventures. It covers how to go from idea to product, lead teams, navigate investors, and make products that truly matter—highly relevant for startup founders learning to build and ship things people love.
El emprendedor
by Arturo Elías Ayub
Spanish-language entrepreneurship book by Arturo Elías Ayub that provides a 10‑step framework for starting or strengthening a business. Aimed at aspiring and early-stage founders, it covers practical guidance on launching, managing, and growing a venture, making it suitable as a must‑read for startup founders in Spanish‑speaking markets.
Elon Musk (Unabridged)
by Walter Isaacson
An unabridged audiobook edition focusing on Elon Musk’s life and ventures, giving startup founders a detailed look at his approach to engineering‑driven companies, aggressive goals, and scaling hard‑tech startups.
Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World
by Rand Fishkin
Rand Fishkin’s candid memoir shares his 15-year journey building Moz and SparkToro, offering blunt insights into startup highs and lows, venture capital pitfalls, and lessons learned from failure.
One Person, Multiple Careers
by Marci Alboher
A non-fiction book by Marci Alboher that explores how professionals can successfully manage multiple careers or "slashes" (e.g., lawyer/consultant/writer). While not exclusively a startup manual, it is highly relevant for startup founders who often juggle multiple roles and identities, providing frameworks and case studies on designing a flexible, opportunity-rich work life—useful for founders navigating side projects, consulting, and early-stage ventures in parallel.
Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It
by Scott Kupor
A practical guide to understanding venture capital from Scott Kupor, managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz. The book explains how VC funds work, how investors evaluate startups, term sheets, dilution, boards, and fundraising strategy, making it a must-read for startup founders seeking to raise capital and navigate investor relationships.
The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less
by Sahil Lavingia
A startup book by Gumroad founder Sahil Lavingia that teaches first-time and bootstrapped founders how to build sustainable, profitable companies by starting small, focusing on real customer needs, and operating with minimal resources instead of chasing venture capital too early.
Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
by Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson
Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson is a definitive guide to understanding venture capital term sheets, deal structures, and fundraising dynamics. It is essential reading for startup founders who plan to raise venture capital, helping them negotiate better terms and build informed relationships with investors.
Why Startups Fail: A New Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success
by Thomas Eisenmann
A startup-focused book by Tom Eisenmann that analyzes common reasons new ventures fail and provides a practical framework to diagnose risks, avoid typical pitfalls, and improve an early-stage company’s odds of success—highly relevant for founders seeking must‑read guidance on what goes wrong and how to prevent it.
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
by Angela Duckworth
Angela Duckworth's Grit reveals that entrepreneurial success stems from sustained passion and perseverance over talent, building key habits of deliberate practice and purpose to overcome prolonged startup failures. Essential mindset shift for founders enduring the marathon of building companies. Vs Atomic Habits, it emphasizes gritty perseverance over tiny changes.
Find Your Extraordinary
by Jessica DiLullo Herrin
Entrepreneurship and personal-development book focused on helping aspiring founders cultivate mindset, habits, and strategies to build extraordinary careers and ventures.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
by Eric Jorgenson
Compiled by Eric Jorgenson, this book blends the wisdom of angel investor Naval Ravikant with practical advice on wealth, leverage, and decision-making. It's a thought-provoking read for founders seeking clarity and a long-term mindset.
Intelligent Business Alliances
by Larraine D. Segil
A business strategy book focused on forming and managing strategic alliances and partnerships—useful for startup founders looking to grow through collaboration and joint ventures rather than purely organic means.
Online Business Game Plan: A 21-Day Game Plan To Launch Your Online Business
by Dan Frigo
Step-by-step 21-day plan to launch an online business, by Dan Frigo. Average rating of 4.41 from 17 ratings on Goodreads. Useful for startup founders building digital ventures.
Core Curriculum Reading: Experimenting in the Entrepreneurial Venture
by Thomas R. Eisenmann & Eric Ries & Sarah Dillard
A Harvard Business School core reading (by Thomas R. Eisenmann, Eric Ries, and Sarah Dillard) that introduces hypothesis-driven entrepreneurship and lean startup experimentation. It teaches founders how to translate vision into testable business model hypotheses, design experiments, and use data to iterate toward product–market fit—making it a must-read foundational text for startup founders.
Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures – Bruce R. Barringer
by Bruce R. Barringer & R. Duane Ireland
Practical guide to successfully launching new ventures for founders.
Launching New Ventures: An Entrepreneurial Approach – Kathleen R. Allen
by Kathleen R. Allen
Guide to launching new ventures using an entrepreneurial approach, useful for startup founders.
New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century and Business Plans That Work by Jeffry A. Timmons
Classic text on new venture creation and crafting effective business plans. Essential for founders developing their startup plans.
Technology Ventures – Tom Byers, Richard Dorf, Andrew Nelson
by Thomas H. Byers & Richard C. Dorf & Andrew J. Nelson
Comprehensive textbook on technology entrepreneurship, guiding from idea to enterprise creation. Relevant for startup founders interested in tech ventures.
The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
by Guy Kawasaki
A practical, battle-tested guide by Guy Kawasaki for entrepreneurs and startup founders that covers how to launch and grow a new venture, including pitching, bootstrapping, recruiting, and brand-building. Widely regarded as a must-read handbook for early-stage founders.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
by Ben Horowitz
Authored by Ben Horowitz, this book provides practical wisdom for startup founders facing difficult decisions. It covers real-world challenges like firing friends and poaching talent, offering insights into the mindset of venture capitalists and the realities of business ownership.
The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets
by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits
Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits's practical guide showing entrepreneurs how to validate business ideas, find product-market fit, and build sustainable companies using lean principles.
The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture
by Scott Belsky
Scott Belsky, founder of Behance and Adobe's Chief Product Officer, addresses the often-ignored middle stretch of entrepreneurial journeys. Drawing from 5+ years of interviews with legendary founders and his own experience with companies like Airbnb and Pinterest, this national bestseller provides 100+ lessons for navigating the hardest part of building something great.
500 Startups: Scaling Early-Stage Investing
by Robert Siegel & Yin Li
A Stanford Graduate School of Business case study detailing the investment strategy and operating model of 500 Startups, an early-stage venture firm founded by Dave McClure. It examines how falling startup costs, changing exit options, and global market opportunities reshape seed investing—highly relevant for startup founders seeking to understand the modern funding landscape and VC expectations.
Core Curriculum Reading: Financing Entrepreneurial Ventures
A Harvard Business School Core Curriculum Reading that introduces key issues in financing entrepreneurial ventures, including how business models shape funding needs, tradeoffs between bootstrapping and external capital, differences between debt and equity, types of equity investors (angels, VCs, strategic investors), venture financing stages, alternative models like partnerships, and emerging funding mechanisms such as crowdfunding and accelerators. Useful foundational reading for startup founders seeking a structured understanding of entrepreneurial finance.
Secrets of Sand Hill Road
by Scott Kupor
A book by Scott Kupor that demystifies the venture capital world, offering insights into how VCs think, what they look for in startups, and how founders can navigate the fundraising process.
The Crowdfunding Revolution
by Kevin Lawton & Dan Marom
Kevin Lawton's 'The Crowdfunding Revolution' explores how startups can leverage social media to raise venture capital. This book is particularly useful for entrepreneurs interested in alternative funding methods.
The Power Law
by Sebastian Mallaby
Sebastian Mallaby’s narrative history of venture capital that helps startup founders understand how VC works, how power-law returns shape the industry, and what that means for building and funding startups.
Venture Deals
by Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson
Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson demystify the venture capital process, offering insights into securing funding and negotiating deals. This book is crucial for startup founders navigating the complex world of venture capital.
The Greater Good
by Madeleine Shaw
"The Greater Good: Social Entrepreneurship for Everyday People Who Want to Change the World" by Madeleine Shaw provides insights for social entrepreneurs, especially women and those traditionally excluded from mainstream business. The book draws from Shaw's experiences and other successful social entrepreneurs to inspire readers to create impactful ventures.
The Journey to Success
by Angela K. Chambers
Angela K. Chambers offers a guide for aspiring women entrepreneurs, providing essential insights and strategies for achieving success in the startup world.
Lucky or Smart?
by Bo Peabody
"Lucky or Smart?" by Bo Peabody is described by Mark Peter Davis of Interplay Ventures as insight into the unique trials entrepreneurs face. Written by serial entrepreneur Bo Peabody, the book shows readers how to put themselves in the right place at the right time and set the conditions for success.
Online Business Startup
by Robin Waite
This book by Robin Waite provides practical advice for entrepreneurs looking to start an online business. It covers essential strategies for launching and growing a successful online venture.
Chasing Clouds: A Sky-High Adventure
by Crystal Franklin Moyer
A children’s adventure book centered on a whimsical sky-high journey. While it appears as a general fiction title rather than a business or entrepreneurship text, it is listed here only for completeness from the provided source and is not directly a startup or founder-focused book. It does not belong in a curated list of must-read startup books for founders, as it lacks content on startups, innovation, or company-building.
Mastering the VC Game
by Jeffrey Bussgang
Jeffrey Bussgang offers a founder-focused guide to understanding venture capital, fundraising dynamics, term sheets, and how to build healthy VC relationships from startup to IPO.
The Angel Philosopher
A startup-focused book that shares insights, lessons, and reflections from the perspective of a seasoned startup investor, aimed at helping founders understand how investors think and make better decisions when building and funding their companies.
Why Startups Fail
by Tom Eisenmann
A practical startup book by Tom Eisenmann that analyzes common reasons new ventures fail and offers a structured roadmap to avoid typical pitfalls, helping founders design more resilient business models and execution plans.
Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street
by John Brooks
By John Brooks, originally published in 1969 and reissued by Open Road Media, this is a collection of New Yorker business stories covering corporate scandals, market crashes, and famous failures like the Ford Edsel. Bill Gates has called it the best business book he's ever read.
Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups
by Jason Calacanis
By Jason Calacanis (2017, HarperCollins), an active angel investor behind early bets on Uber and Robinhood, this book is a practical guide for new angel investors on how to find deals, evaluate founders, and build a portfolio.
Term Sheets & Valuations: A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets & Valuations
by Alex Wilmerding
By Alex Wilmerding (2006, Aspatore Books), this short, focused guide breaks down venture capital term sheets clause by clause, explaining what each provision means and how it affects founders' ownership and control.
Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation
by Andrew Metrick and Ayako Yasuda
By Andrew Metrick and Ayako Yasuda (2010, 2nd/3rd editions, Wiley), this textbook covers the mechanics and economics of venture capital — how funds are structured, how deals are valued, and how VC returns actually work.
Founder's Pocket Guide: Startup Equity
by Stephen R. Poland
By Stephen R. Poland (2015, 1x1 Media), this short reference guide explains how startup equity works in practice: cap tables, vesting, dilution, and option pools, aimed at first-time founders making early equity decisions.