Entrepreneurs seem to be a separate breed in the species of business people. They are the relentless ones, able to identify or even create a demand and fill it with an innovative idea. They have some kind of an inexhaustible energy and motivation that every time their project fails, allows them to get up, learn from the failure and hit on a next idea. When other people don’t take them seriously, they still believe in themselves and strive after their goals. Obviously, you won’t learn how to be an entrepreneur from any book – you simply must be born one. What you can do is learn from their experience and avoid the mistakes they have made as they have been carving their way to success. After top 5 books about data analytics and top 3 books to get you off the ground with business intelligence, we continue our self-study series with 10 best entrepreneur books. You probably won’t become the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg (although we keep our fingers crossed), but you can learn what strategies led them to the great success. We hope these entrepreneur books will keep you motivated and bring you one step closer to your own success.

1) The Startup Playbook: Secrets of the Fastest-Growing Startups From Their Founding Entrepreneurs by David Kidder

A collection of interviews with 40 most successful start-up founders behind companies like PayPal, TED or LinkedIn. This book covers a wide array of topics: from effective leadership to discovering your niche. The most influential entrepreneurs put their cards on the table and share business advice that can be trusted – their success proves them right. You can learn about entrepreneurs’ management style, how to choose the right idea to purse, how to find funding and overcome obstacles. The answers are often non-obvious and very inspiring.

2) Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel

This entrepreneur bestseller was intended specifically for the startup community. It provides readers with questions they should ask themselves to realize what they need to consider and what to avoid before making the next decision. Learning to ask the right questions may help you find value in unexpected places and discover opportunities where you haven’t been searching for them yet. Questions like whether you have the right team, is it the right time for your business or will your market position be defensible 10 years from now, and many more, are universal points to consider, regardless of the industry you are in. Thiel also highlights the importance of thinking for yourself and striving to uniqueness and individuality. The real entrepreneurs don’t focus on competing ruthlessly on the market – they escape competition altogether because their businesses are unprecedented.

3) The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

This is a real classic and an obligatory position on any list of best entrepreneur books. Drucker takes a holistic view on the entrepreneur – he should first learn how to manage himself and then turn to his employees. The author was the first one who popularized now commonplace ideas about management. He identified practices that are crucial in a successful business, stressing the importance of time management, communication within the company, building on employees’ individual strengths as well as working as a team towards the common goal.

4) The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

'The Innovator's Dilemma' popularized the notion of 'disruptive technology' which is creating products that will fulfill customers’ future or unstated needs rather than address only the existing ones. The ‘dilemma’ in the title comes from the idea that businesses often don’t implement innovative solutions based on the fact that customers cannot make use of them at the present moment, thus allowing these great ideas to go to waste. Christensen provides many examples how well-established companies acted according to customers’ needs, employed new technologies and took competition into consideration, but nevertheless failed.

5) The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank

If you are starting a new venture, and you're trying to figure out how to successfully organize sales, marketing and business development – this is the right book. It’s like a manual to building a start-up. The book focuses on the lean approach which allows to discover flaws in a product or a business plan and correct them before they became costly. Another key takeaway is the customer development - learning and discovering who a company's initial customers will be and what markets they are in.

6) Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) by Verne Harnish

Harnish wrote this bestselling entrepreneur book inspired by management and leadership principles used by John D. Rockefeller, the famous American business magnate and innovator. This book can serve you as a guide as you lead your company through different development phrases. It is Harnish who first coined the term ‘gazelles’ referring to small entrepreneurial companies who manage to grow at a fast pace for a prolonged period of time, where that growth rate is as big as 20% or more per annum. Today Harnish is the CEO of Gazelles and an authority on business coaching. In his groundbreaking book he formulated priorities a company should follow, stressed the importance of collecting and analyzing data to get actionable insights as well as good organization and communication within a company. The book offers plenty of good advice but also some substantial aid by means of one-page strategic plans readers can adjust to their needs.

7) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

The title sounds trivial but raise your hand if you have never read any article on a similar subject. We are all curious how they do it. Covey proves that the basic principles that will make us better people and entrepreneurs can be mastered with a little practice. Tips like be proactive, learn to control your outlook or listen and learn from other people are universal truths we can all apply every day. You don’t have to spend a fortune on a private coaching session, just get a copy of this book and it will give you a kick of positive energy.

8) Do It! Marketing: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Boost Sales, Maximize Profits, and Crush Your Competition by David Newman

This time the title says it all. After you acquaint yourself with 77 applicable ideas you get to a 21-day marketing launch plan you will easily customize to fit your business. If you ever wondered how to improve expert positioning, manage social media, create compelling content or an e-mail that actually somebody will click through – this is a book for you. Moreover, it is all delivered in a clear and easy-to-read manner that will get you quickly from learning to implementing.

9) Go Pro: 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional by Eric Worre

Experienced by the vicissitudes of business, Worre has arrived at the conclusion that the core network marketing wisdom can be boiled down to seven skills you can learn, repeat and master. He created a guidebook in which he shares trustworthy advice on how to find and acquire prospects, how to present your product, how to elevate prospects to customers and eventually your business partners and brand ambassadors.

10) The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick Lencioni

Last but not least we decided to take "The Advantage" written by Patrick Lencioni in our list of great entrepreneur books. For Lencioni organizational health is all about integrity in the sense of acting consistently, with management, strategy, operations and culture allied for a common goal. This kind of health can be achieved by monitoring individual performance, strong morale and minimal politics across the organization. This entrepreneur bestseller features practical tips on how to reach this state, for example by sticking to regular tactical staff meetings and daily check-ins. Moreover, Lenconi stresses the importance of collaboration within the team and working together with a shared vision – he calls it “overcommunication”. At the same time he delineates the position of a strong leader needed to clearly determine the company’s strategy.