8 Books That Got Me to $25m ARR (bootstrapped)

Over the past 10 years I’ve read over 250 books about startups. Here are the 8 books that got me from $0-$25m ARR with zero funding (in order of impact) and what I learned from each of them:

1. Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

If you are an aspiring founder, this is a must read. I re-read the first half of this book each time I start a startup. It’s dense, but there is no better description of the steps to take to reduce your chance of failure to ZERO. Takeaway: Build your audience of buyers before you launch, or you’re screwed.

2. Founder Brand by Dave Gerhardt

This has been more impactful than anything I’ve ever done in business. Yes, I have magical alignment in that I am my ICP and my ICP lives on LinkedIn. Even if you do not have that alignment, Founder Brand content creation is an automated trust-building machine and will pay dividends.

3. ReWork by Jason Fried

The OG SaaS bootstrappers have great takes on the benefits of creating a business outside of the VC ecosystem. You should read this book, then immediately do Y-Combinator’s Startup School, and land somewhere in the middle. (Jason agreed to come on UnF*ck My Startup. Just don’t have a date yet. We can’t wait!)

4. Y-Combinator Startup School

These guys understand the importance of pursuing growth as a key metric, but can skew towards making you think you should try to go big (because many of the biggest went through YC). As I said, land between here and ReWork.

5. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

Such an incredible articulation of the things that make the CEO job difficult. Must-read for any aspiring Founders to know what you’re getting yourself into.

6. The Great CEO Within by Matt Mochary

Read and re-read as you advance along your journey. Different bits will resonate each year. Being a CEO is hard, and creating a balanced life around the job is even harder. Matt rolls out playbooks for inside and outside the company.

7. $100m Offers by Alex Hormozi

“Have an offer so good your prospects will feel stupid not doing it.” Read, and re-read again. Then look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if that statement is true for you. If not, make it true… And when you do, everything will change.

8. Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Nothing describes the necessity of being different better than this book. Make yourself a Purple Cow so you get talked about. It’s within your control, do it!

TAKEAWAY:

These books have formed my beliefs about how successful startups happen.

You reading this today - and RB2B going from $0-$6.3m ARR in 18mo with 3 FTE - is the direct result of me picking up Founder Brand by Dave Gerhardt two years ago.

It planted a seed that led to a rabbit hole and I just kept digging.

That's the power of a great book.

If you're a founder and you feel stuck, logoff Linkedin for a bit.

Head over to Amazon and order one of these 8 classics.

Then put 10 minutes a day aside and start reading.

It may change your life.