HarperBusiness · Starting Up

📖 Book

✓ Link checked Paid Advanced

From the startup world's most in-demand executive coach, this book makes the case that radical self-inquiry, examining the patterns that drove your success but now hurt you, is essential to leading well without breaking.

Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up

From HarperBusiness by Jerry Colonna long

The psychological habits that made you successful can quietly sabotage your well-being and relationships
Radical self-inquiry is a leadership skill, not therapy indulgence
Coaching gives founders a confidential space to process what they can't share with team or investors
Work does not have to destroy us, but only if we examine ourselves honestly

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Answers Should I get a therapist or coach as a founder, and does it actually help? How do I cope with the crushing loneliness and pressure of being a founder?

📖 Book

✓ Link checked Paid Intermediate

The definitive, brutally honest account of 'The Struggle', the emotional and operational reality of running a company when there are no easy answers. It's the book founders return to during their worst weeks.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

From HarperBusiness by Ben Horowitz long

There's no playbook for The Struggle; great companies are forged in the periods where everything is going wrong
Hard decisions (layoffs, demotions, telling hard truths) are the CEO's real job, courage is a practiced skill
Take care of the people, the products, and the profits, in that order
The difference between a good and bad company is often how the CEO handles the moments with no good options

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Answers How do I hire good engineers in India when everyone's competing for the same talent? What actually separates founders who make it from those who quit? How do I build resilience for the emotional rollercoaster of startup life? How do I make hard decisions when there's no obvious right answer? How do I actually run a pivot without losing the whole team's trust? How do I balance a startup with family and caregiving responsibilities? If the startup fails, how do I explain the gap to future employers? I have deep experience but only as an employee, never a founder. Does that still count as founder-market fit? I relaunched a product that failed the first time. How do I frame it so it doesn't look like I'm just recycling a flop?

📖 Book

✓ Link checked Paid Intermediate

When you feel that something is broken but cannot name it, Christensen's Jobs-to-be-Done lens gives you a way to describe the actual progress a person is trying to make in a specific situation. That reframing turns a fuzzy hunch into a concrete job you can go test with real people, which is exactly the move from vague to sharp. It is the canonical text on the idea, and it is a starting point for thinking in jobs, not a formula to follow blindly.

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

From HarperBusiness by Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan ~288 pages

People do not buy products, they hire them to make progress in a specific circumstance, so define the job, not the demographic.
A job has functional, social, and emotional dimensions, which is often where the real, unmet problem is hiding.
Once you can state the job clearly, you have a testable claim you can validate or kill by talking to the people who have it.

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Answers How do I do user research when I'm building something nobody has seen before and can't describe what they want? How do I define an ideal customer for a product no one is searching for yet? I'm a domain expert building for my own industry. Does knowing the field too well make me worse at spotting the real job? My product is for Indian small businesses who mostly run their operations on WhatsApp. How do I frame the job against a free tool they already love? When is the job someone hires my product for actually an emotional or social one, not a functional one? How do I tell the difference between a real competitor and a company customers only mention because it's famous?