ONLINE CLASSES
Business Model Canvas Explained from Strategyzer on Vimeo.
Free Business Classes through MIT
EXTENDED LEARNING RESOURCES
MicroMentors – the world’s largest community of entrepreneurs and volunteer business mentors.
Innovation Works – free startup recipes for early-stage founders
CoFoundersLab – providing innovators with a platform to engage and interact with CoFounders, mentors, investors, and innovators
Venture Founders LLC – a source of knowledge and information for entrepreneurs about everything to do with startups
Growth Geeks – grow your business without hiring more staff
Startup Anonymous – we provide information and guidance for startups and also allow people involved in startups to anonymously as questions
BLOGS
Sam Altman’s Blog – As president of Y Combinator, whose funded companies include AirBnB, Stripe, and Dropbox, Sam Altman has seen enough successes to be referred to as a Silicon Valley kingmaker.
500Hats – learn from the founder of seed fund 500 Startups, Dave McClure.
Steve Blank – serial-entrepreneur recognized for developing the Customer Development methodology that launched the Lean Startup movement.
OnStartups – blog by HubSpot cofounder Dharmesh Shah, dedicated to startup software companies.
forEntrepreneurs – started by David Skok, five-time co-founder and venture capitalist. Voted №1 website for entrepreneurs by Inc. Magazine.
BOOKS
Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal by Oren Klaff
The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs by William H. Draper III
Outliers by Malcom Gladwell – takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?
Rework by Jason Fried and Davide Heinemeier Hansson – from the experience of Jason and David, founders of 37signals, a small company that sits behind some very well known web-based applications such as BaseCamp, or technologies such as Ruby on Rails.
The Lean Startup by 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.
Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya – offers an invaluable blueprint for mod¬eling startup success. You’ll learn the essential metrics that measure the output of a working business model, give you the pulse of your company, communicate its health to investors, and enable you to make precise interventions when things go wrong.
Traction: Get a Grip On Your Business by Gino Wickman
The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development: A Cheat to the Four Steps to the Epiphany by Brant Cooper
Product Entrepreneur: How to Launch your Product
Productize: The Ultimate Guide to Turning Professional Services into Scalable Products
The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback
INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group)
MARKET RESEARCH RESOURCES
Ask Your Target Market – an Online Market Research solution that helps brands and agencies gain insights from their precise target markets.
Quora – a place to gain and share knowledge. It’s a platform to ask questions and connect with people who contribute unique insights and quality answers.
Survey Monkey – used to drive your business forward by using their free online survey tool to capture the voices and opinions of the of the people who matter most to you.
Google Trends – a trend search feature that shows the popularity of a search term in Google across various regions and languages.
PODCASTS
Found by TechCrunch – Darrell Etherington and Jordan Crook host a weekly podcast from TechCrunch that’s all about founders, and the stories behind the startups. Each episode features an interview with a different early-stage founder.
Founders And Friends Podcast – Top startup founders, venture capitalists, and advisors interviewed by Scott Orn of Kruze Consulting, the accounting firm to VC funded startups.
How I Raised It – The podcast where we interview startup founders who raised capital.
The Pitch – where real entrepreneurs pitch to real investors—for real money. The Pitch takes you behind closed doors and into the world of startups: how people sell their ideas, what makes investors tick, and how these initial conversations can bloom into business deals—or die on the vine.
How I Built This with Guy Raz – Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world’s best-known companies. How I Built This, weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists—and the movements they built.
Startup – Episodes 1-14 – Alex documents his pitch to Chris Sacca, silicon valley legend, early investor in Twitter, Uber, Instagram and Kickstarter. Alex makes his pitch to Chris, disastrously, near a highway overpass along West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. Chris then gives Alex’s pitch back to him, the way Alex should have done it in the first place. Chris then lists all the reasons not to invest in Alex’s company but then invites him back to LA to pitch to his partner.
Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman – an original podcast hosted by Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linked and investor of Greylock. In each episode, Reid shows how companies grow from zero to a gazillion, testing his theories with legendary leaders.
Finding Your First Customer – Host Micheal Boezi discusses how marketing does not have to be pushy, aggressive, and sales-y. Respectful, ethical marketing strategies are more in line with the expectations of consumers anyway.
How to Know If You’ve Got Product Market Fit – Host Andy Rachleff, The Co-founder of Benchmark Capital & Wealthfront, explains the most important goal of a startup: how do you find product-market fit? As the man who coined the term, he’s the expert—and in this episode, he also shares lessons learned from legendary startup super performers such as Scott Cook, Reed Hastings, Don Valentine, and many others.
Plan for Preselling the SaaS to Early Adopters – Host Ajay Paghdal discusses his plan for pre-selling his Saas to early adopters for validation and cash flow.
Product Launch with Sean Boyce
Secrets of a Successful Product Launch
From Lab to Launch by Qualio
ARTICLES
Startuphack.vc – 6 Things Founder Should Expect During Venture Due Diligence
Brex – The many types of startup funding and when to use each one.
LinkedIn – What is the Best Corporate Structure for Attracting Investors?
HubSpot – How to Determine Product Market Fit in Your Industry
B2B Marketing Zone – What is Customer Segmentation and How to Use it to Grow Your Business
Influence&Co – 8 Rules for Finding the Right Customer (and Saying No to the Wrong One!)
Entrepreneurship in a Box – How to Validate Business Idea to Become 100% Sure that You Will Succeed?
Medium – How to Drive Customer Traction for Your Startup
Product Launch Types: How to Launch a Product Successfully
These Product Launches Tell Us Exactly How to Go About It
How to make a product launch succeed
How to make sure your next product or service launch drives growth
How to create a successful product launch that drives sales