The Founder Bookshelf
Books founders recommend to each other. Browse by topic or by where you are as you grow, mark what you've read, and add what's next.
4 books on Sales for leading at scale
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Honest advice for the brutal decisions running a company forces on you.
Ben Horowitz shares hard-won lessons from building, running, and selling Opsware through dot-com collapse and constant crisis. Rather than offering tidy formulas, he...
1 founder recommends Get the book ↗
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Win people over by genuinely caring about them first.
Carnegie distills timeless principles for getting along with and influencing others: avoid criticism, give honest appreciation, see things from the other person's...
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Win big deals by asking the right questions, not by pitching harder.
Based on a twelve-year study of thousands of sales calls, Rackham shows that techniques that work for small sales backfire in large, complex deals. He introduces the...
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Top reps win by teaching and challenging customers, not just building rapport.
Based on a study of thousands of sales reps, the authors identify five seller profiles and find that Challengers, who teach, tailor, and take control, consistently...
Questions, answered
What books do founders recommend?
Founders on the eChai network recommend titles like The Hard Thing About Hard Things, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and SPIN Selling. The bookshelf ranks books by how many founders have read them.
Where can I find a startup reading list?
The eChai founder bookshelf is a curated, founder-recommended reading list you can browse by topic (fundraising, product, hiring) and by stage.
How is the bookshelf ordered?
By recommendation: the more founders mark a book read, the higher it ranks. You can also sort by newest or A to Z.
