Want to know what books Stephen Jeske recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Stephen Jeske's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
How do successful companies create products people can’t put down?
Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us?
Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the Hook Model—a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back again and again without... more How do successful companies create products people can’t put down?
Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us?
Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the Hook Model—a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back again and again without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.
Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting, and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a start-up founder—not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, start-up founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behavior.
Eyal provides readers with:
• Practical insights to create user habits that stick.
• Actionable steps for building products people love.
• Fascinating examples from the iPhone to Twitter, Pinterest to the Bible App, and many other habit-forming products. less 
Matt MullenwegHooked gives you the blueprint for the next generation of products. Read Hooked or the company that replaces you will. (Source)
Raluca RaduIn terms of business, some of the must-read books I would mention are Hooked by Nir Eyal, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day by Avinash Kaushik, Call To Action and Always Be Testing by Bryan Eisenberg, Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi, How To Build Websites That Sell by Peep Laja, Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina. (Source)
2
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. more Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.
Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.
The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.
Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever. less 
Sheryl SandbergProvides a great inside look at how the tech industry approaches building products and businesses. (Source)
Tim O'ReillyThe Lean Startup isn't just about how to create a more successful entrepreneurial business, it's about what we can learn from those businesses to improve virtually everything we do. I imagine Lean Startup principles applied to government programs, to healthcare, and to solving the world's great problems. It's ultimately an answer to the question 'How can we learn more quickly what works, and... (Source)
3
Two successful startup founders offer a comprehensive overview of the various ways startups can achieve strong, sustainable growth, and a guide to choosing the ones that will make the differencce.
Why do so many startups fail? According to entrepreneurs Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares, most failed startups don’t get off the ground not because of a bad product, but because they don’t have enough customers. They make the fatal mistake of putting all their effort into perfecting their product at the cost of reaching out to potential users. Instead, they should be putting half... more Two successful startup founders offer a comprehensive overview of the various ways startups can achieve strong, sustainable growth, and a guide to choosing the ones that will make the differencce.
Why do so many startups fail? According to entrepreneurs Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares, most failed startups don’t get off the ground not because of a bad product, but because they don’t have enough customers. They make the fatal mistake of putting all their effort into perfecting their product at the cost of reaching out to potential users. Instead, they should be putting half their resources into getting traction.
TRACTION is the essential guide for any startup looking to stay ahead of the curve and start building a user base early in the game. The book offers no one-size-fits-all solution: every startup is unique, so no single method is guaranteed to generate traction. Instead, the authors identify nineteen different traction channels from viral marketing to trade shows, offer insights on how to exploit each one to its fullest potential, and provide a framework to test various channels and identify the best one for any startup.
Drawing on advice from more than 40 successful startup founders and marketers, from Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales to American Apparel’s Ryan Holiday, TRACTION is a comprehensive textbook for marketing your way to growth. less Ola OlusogaI've read Influence by Robert Cialdini 3 times, and Traction by Gabriel Weinberg twice, so if number of times read indicates favor, then those are it. (Source)
Joel GascoigneTraction has been a somewhat recent read for me. The key take-away I had from the book was to try to spend as much time on traction as on product development. The other realization the book triggered for me was that in the early days of Buffer, we focused our content marketing efforts around traction, and we found that guest blogging helped us a lot with spreading the word and triggering new... (Source)
Gunhee ParkThis book lays out a framework to help any startup brainstorm ways to gain more customer traction. (Source)
4
Now a decade after the Four Steps to the Epiphany
sparked the Lean Startup revolution, comes its sequel…
The Startup Owner's Manual
The Manual incorporates 10 years of learning and best practices
that have swept the startup world. It:
Incorporates the "Business Model Canvas" as the organizing principle for
startup hypotheses
Provides separate paths and advice for web/mobile products versus
physical products
Offers a wealth of detailed instruction on how to get, keep, and grow
customers recognizing the different techniques... more Now a decade after the Four Steps to the Epiphany
sparked the Lean Startup revolution, comes its sequel…
The Startup Owner's Manual
The Manual incorporates 10 years of learning and best practices
that have swept the startup world. It:
Incorporates the "Business Model Canvas" as the organizing principle for
startup hypotheses
Provides separate paths and advice for web/mobile products versus
physical products
Offers a wealth of detailed instruction on how to get, keep, and grow
customers recognizing the different techniques for web and physical channels
And teaches a "new math" for startups: "metrics that matter for fueling growth"
The Startup Owner's Manual is a step-by-step, near-encyclopedic reference manual or "how to" for building a successful, scalable startup.
Want to know what to do the first, week, month or year?
What's the right distribution channel for your product?
How to get traffic to your web site?
…and how to activate customers or users on arrival?
Who are the right "first customers," and why?
…plus many more great tips in nearly 500 pages, complete with index,
glossary, and Customer Development Checklists
It's the indispensible reference guide for any startup founder, entrepreneur, investor or educator. less Bill EarnerThe Startup Owner's Manual by Steve Blank is a more full on version of the Lean Startup and is a real how to manual for customer development (Source)
5
Beyond The E-Myth embraces the fundamental premise of that first book--that a small business only succeeds to the degree its owner goes to work ON the business rather than just IN it, creating the systemic Operating System that makes that business unique in the marketplace.
Beyond The E-Myth expands that conversation with the entrepreneurial small business owner, in a clear, precise, and compelling overview that addresses their main job--inventing, building, and launching a company with the power to -scale---to grow beyond the -Company of One- in a straightforward, eight-step... more Beyond The E-Myth embraces the fundamental premise of that first book--that a small business only succeeds to the degree its owner goes to work ON the business rather than just IN it, creating the systemic Operating System that makes that business unique in the marketplace.
Beyond The E-Myth expands that conversation with the entrepreneurial small business owner, in a clear, precise, and compelling overview that addresses their main job--inventing, building, and launching a company with the power to -scale---to grow beyond the -Company of One- in a straightforward, eight-step process.
When asked, Gerber emphatically explains: -I wrote this to make the job of building a small business easy--for every man or woman struggling to get it right. This book cuts to the chase: A company is a product to be sold. Build it right, and you will sell it. Build it wrong, and you won't. Most small business owners won't. This book was written to fix that.- less Don't have time to read Stephen Jeske's favorite books? Read Shortform summaries.
Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:
- Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
- Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
- Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.
