Reading is Fundamental for Success

It’s easy to forget to breathe when you’re a startup trying to juggle all kinds of different activities, but that’s also why it’s even more important that you pause once in a while, calm down, and sit down for a nice leisurely read. I found a great way to do it is to get on the exercise bike and read. It’ll help pass the time and you learn at the same time - burn calories, gain knowledge! The elliptical machine and treadmill are a little bit more challenging to read on…

After we launched the open beta of menuism about 4 weeks ago, we’ve been slowly changing gears and putting more thought and time into other aspects of the business. When we started this venture, one of our goals was to make this a “for experience” venture at the very least. As long as we learn, there’s no such thing as failure - we’ll just chalk it up to the MBA of hard knocks. The fun part of learning while you’re doing is that everything is much more interesting than in school when it’s hard to see applicability.

The past few weeks we’ve been increasing our book budget and making more trips to our friendly neighborhood public libraries and here are the books we’ve been reading:

• The Long Tail - Chris Anderson. This is a great book about the growth of niche markets and how they’re changing business of all kinds. It’s kind of like how there’s a small group of you reading this blog instead of going to larger publication about business.
• The Art of Profitability - Adrian Slywotzky. Who doesn’t like profit? The book is written in a friendly, story-telling manner that makes the concepts easy to understand. He walks through 23 different basic profit models.
• Small Is the New Big - Seth Godin. Collection of stories and articles about the beauty of being small. It’s an easy and entertaining read. You’ll get plenty of stories that you can tell your friends and sound smart.
• All Marketers Are Liars - Seth Godin. Learn how to tell genuine stories and connect with your audience and customers. Hint: The title of the book is just a marketing tactic, they aren’t all liars
• Guerilla Marketing for Free - Jay Conrad Levinson. When you’re small and on a budget, you need all the free ideas you can get. The next time I give you 3 business cards or you see my business card stuffed in a library book, you’ll know why.
• Crossing the Chasm - Geoffrey Moore. How do you take your product from early adopter to mass market? Read this book for hints on tackling the chasm, the gap that stands in the way of any small company’s mainstream success.
• The Art of Project Management - Scott Berkun. A great guide to getting things done in software projects, the right way. A pleasure to read all the way through, and a great reference to come back to.

Got any suggestions for our next book?

- Justin

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