This is the guide that I wish had existed when I started my entrepreneurship journey back in ~2005 and it’s what I’ll share with my future kids.
These are all of the best resources, books, articles, and podcasts that have shaped me into the entrepreneur that I am today.
If you’re trying to figure out how to level up your entrepreneurship/business acumen, this will likely be extremely helpful! 🤙
This article is broken up into various sections so feel free to jump around!
- Psychology of Success
- Read my guide to the psychology of success
- Watch videos of successful people describing principles of success (lots of interesting women to choose from): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf3y-2dkOas&list=PLiZj-Ik9MmM0VWRGYCfuUCdyhKfU733WX&ab_channel=EvanCarmichael
- Steve Jobs’s 10 Rules of Success (40 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHzAtxW3TzY
- Oprah Winfrey’s 10 Rules of Success (11 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a8ncSBU-Eg
- Arianna Huffington’s 10 Rules of Success (14 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vWmVoL8tTc
- Sara Blakely’s 10 Rules of Success (Spanx Founder)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vssrx7G-94w&ab_channel=Top10RulesForSuccess%2FEvanCarmichael
- Marie Forleo’s 10 Rules of Success (Bestselling Advice Author) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pljd0euzXiY
- Elon Musk’s 10 Rules of Success (7 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX7I_Rw8Q0I
- Jeff Bezos’s 10 Rules of Success (9 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAdjNuE6EZQ
- Bill Gates’s 10 Rules of Success (13 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq-gba5nMrc
- Warren Buffet’s 10 Rules of Success (9 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEgu6p_frmE
- Gary V’s 10 Rules of Success (25 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vqJrJ8cxEQ
- Beyonce’s 10 Rules of Success (9 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC79HWP6IXY
- Anna Wintour’s 10 Rules of Success (10 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MW-hPH1OLM
- Brene Brown’s 10 Rules of Success (38 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDS5bqvOlhc
- Mark Cuban’s 10 Rules of Success (10 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRMybKaNSus
- Rachel Hollis 10 Rules of Success (Bestselling self-help author) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGGOBCJrlfg
- Steve Jobs secrets of life (2 mins) https://youtu.be/kYfNvmF0Bqw
- Gabby Bernstein’s 10 Rules of Success (Bestselling self-help/spirituality author) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6UHbCpk_EI
- Michelle Obama’s 10 Rules of Success https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdePbLi8-ao
- Rihanna’s 10 Rules of Success https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMlLvtxHagg
- Jennifer Lopez 10 Rules of Success https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uhm_WKOuVQ
- How To Get Rich by Naval Ravikant (3.5 hours)
- How to be successful by sam Altman (15 mins) https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful
- Startup Philosophy (from the founders of YC which is the most successful startup accelerator ever and helped launch DoorDash, Instacart, Dropbox, Reddit, Airbnb, and lots of other successful companies)
- Startup Philosophy by Sam Altman (25 mins)
- How To Start A Startup by YC (20 hours of incredible videos from the best entrepreneurs in the world)
- 13 Sentences To Describe Startups by Paul Graham (5 Mins)
- Be Relentlessly Resourceful by Paul Graham (5 Mins)
- Do Things That Don’t Scale by Paul Graham (10 Mins)
- 9 Scaling Lessons From Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn (6 Mins)
- Bonus: Watch videos from YC’s Female Founders Conferences (best female entrepreneurs in the world giving advice and talking about their stories)
- Entrepreneurship Books To Read
- The Lean Startup (the philosophy behind how I build businesses and maybe the most famous startup book ever written)
- Watch the summary first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sobxOzRjAGg&ab_channel=BookVideoClub
- The Four Hour Workweek (popularized the nomadic and passive income way of life)
- Watch the summary first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3TeLsaKzAM&ab_channel=FightMediocrity
- Rework (quick, easy, and interesting read about how you shouldn’t follow traditional business rules and you should do things your way)
- The Personal MBA (overview to everything you need to know about business, haven’t read this yet but I’ll read it with you)
- Bonuses:
- How I Built This Podcast by Guy Raz (fantastic podcast where he interviews the most successful entrepreneurs in the world about their path to success. Definitely recommend listening to a few, maybe especially some of the female entrepreneur stories)
- The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups from their Founding Entrepreneurs https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AB12U4W/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
- Steve Jobs Biography (one of my favorite books, all about how there aren’t any rules or biz or life and that you can achieve anything)
- You Are A Badass At Making Money (this is about a female entrepreneur’s journey to traveling the world and becoming very successful)
- The Lean Startup (the philosophy behind how I build businesses and maybe the most famous startup book ever written)
- Project Management / Productivity / Habits
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Book Summary (7 Mins)
- Getting Things Done (my favorite productivity and thought organization book)
- Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss
Bonus Resources About Specific Skills
- Customer Service
- Online Business
- Content Marketing
- Growth Machines’ Free Content Course on growing a blog from 0 to 100k visitors in 8 months (this has been wildly impactful and important for me)
- The Wiki Strategy: How to Grow Your Blog to 100k+ Monthly Visitors by Nat Eliason (also an amazing read)
- The Gary V Content Strategy
- Other Content Site Case Studies
- The Story of NerdWallet’s $520M Content Empire (15 Mins) https://thehustle.co/nerdwallet-maggie-leung
- 7 SEO Ideas From NerdWallet’s Success (10 Mins) https://www.thehoth.com/blog/nerdwallet-seo/?utm_campaign=Submission&utm_medium=Community&utm_source=GrowthHackers.com
- 6 NerdWallet Strategies (5 Mins) https://www.linkdex.com/en-gb/inked/nerdwallet-organic-search-strategy/
- Buffer Blog to 1.5 Million Readers (25 Mins) https://blog.bufferapp.com/buffer-blog-one-million?utm_campaign=Submission&utm_medium=Community&utm_source=GrowthHackers.com
- Skim: UpWorthy, A Case Study (20 Mins) https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/upworthy/
- Key Takeaway: People love sharing maps. How We Scaled From 0 to 100,000 Blog Visits (20 Mins) http://yesoptimist.com/content-marketing-seo-case-study-the-trifecta-strategy/
- How Kissmetrics Scaled Content (1 Hour) https://www.dropbox.com/s/7red9bsyfi9dvkp/The Content Marketing Playbook.pdf?dl=0
- Growth Marketing
- Growth Marketing Handbook by Julian Shapiro (one of the best growth marketers in Silicon Valley) – this is a killer overview of a lot of all things digital marketing. I’ve especially found it helpful in regards to writing effective, concise copy.
- Backlinko.com (for search engine 0ptimization aka SEO content)
- Brian Balfour’s Guide To Customer Acquisition
- Copywriting
- The Definitive Guide to Copywriting by Backlinko (this guide is fucking awesome and it’s from the best SEO blog on the internet)
- Our 8 Best Ad Copywriting Tips EVER! (from Wordstream)
- The Ultimate Guide to No-Pain Copywriting (or, Every Copywriting Formula Ever) by CopyHackers
- The Ultimate Guide to Copywriting by Neil Patel
- Sales
- The Video That Taught Me To Sell (15 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbS-y0L3gRI
- My Second Favorite Sales Video (17 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBK64vdljZ0
- Jordan Belfort: Sell Me This Pen (2 mins) https://youtu.be/72_tkbnY3Sg?t=101
- Top 10 Sales Techniques For Entrepreneurs (25 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwwgGOBw1oE
- 10 Tips on Business Development (4 Mins) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Xwy-XBVgk
- Bonus Book: How I Raised Myself From Success To Failure http://www.amazon.com/How-Raised-Myself-From-Failure-ebook/dp/B002XQAAWW
- Outsourcing & Hiring Contractors (read this when you start scaling/hiring)
- How To Hire & Manage Remote Teams (read this when you start scaling/hiring)
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