Entrepreneurship, Product Development, & Product Management – Reading List / Resources
Curated by Ken Rother – ksr77@cornell.edu, ken.rother@gmail.com
(Last Updated: Feb.21/22)
Books:
Entrepreneurship
Highly Recommended:
Business model generation a handbook for visionaries,game changers, and challengers
Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want
Testing Business Ideas: A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation
The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a GreatCompany
Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup
Talking to Humans: Success starts with understanding your customers
Testing with humans: How to use experiments to make faster,more informed decision making
Where to play: 3 steps for discovering your most valuable market opportunities
Optional but helpful:
The four steps to the epiphany: Successful strategies for products that win
The founder’s dilemmas: Anticipating and avoiding the pitfalls that can sink a startup
Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
Entrepreneurship in the Wild: A Startup Field Guide
High-Impact Tools for Teams: 5 Tools to Align Team Members, Build Trust, and Get Results Fast
Specialty Topics:
Academic Entrepreneurship – University Spinoffs and Wealth Creation
Product management
The messy middle finding your way through the hardest and most crucial part of any bold venture
Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
Product Management in Practice: A Real-World Guide to the Key Connective Role of the 21st Century
Design sprint: A practical guidebook for building great digital products
Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty
Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen
Why People (Don’t) Buy: The Go and Stop Signals
Hardware Product Entrepreneurship
Product Realization: Going from One to a Million
Prototype to product: A practical guide for getting to market
The hardware startup: building your product, business, and brand
Electronics
The Art of Electronics: The x-chapters. Cambridge
Learning the Art of Electronics: A Hands-On Lab Course
Make electronics: Learning through discovery
Practical Electronics for Inventors
Programming
Programming Arduino: Getting started with sketches
Exploring Arduino: Tools and Techniques for Engineering Wizardry
Exploring Raspberry Pi: Interfacing to the Real World with Embedded Linux
Programming the Raspberry Pi, Third Edition: Getting Started with Python
Mechanical
Mechanical engineering for makers: A hands-on guide to designing and making physical things
Motors for makers: A guide to steppers, servos, and other electrical machines
Materials, Processes, & Design
Materials and design the art and science of material selection in product design
Structural packaging: Design your own boxes and 3-D forms
Making it: Manufacturing techniques for product design
Manufacturing processes for design professionals
The Materials sourcebook for design professionals
Shop Tools & Techniques
Make: Fusion 360 for makers: Design your own digital models for 3D printing and CNCfabrication
Functional Design for 3D Printing: Designing 3d printed things for everyday use
Design for CNC: Furniture Projects and Fabrication Technique
Getting Started with 3D Carving: Five Step-by-Step Projects to Launch You on Your Maker Journey
Make: Tools: How they work and how to use them
Make: Tips and Tales from the Workshop: A Handy Reference for Makers
Workshop Mastery with Jimmy DiResta: A Guide to Working With Metal, Wood, Plastic, and Leather
Prototyping & Manufacturing
Beyond the prototype: A roadmap for navigating the fuzzy area between ideas and outcomes
Prototyping and modelmaking for product design
Prototyping and low-volume production
Design
The design thinking toolbox: A guide to mastering the most popular and valuable innovation methods
Research methods for product design
Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
Designing for How People Think: Using Brain Science to Build Better Products
Entrepreneurship Stories & Concepts
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Blogs, Posts, Podcasts, Videos, & Twitter Handles:
Entrepreneurship
The Entrepreneurial Strategy Compass
Intellectual Property Video Series University of Michigan
Design Thinking resources Stanford D.School
Hardware Entrepreneurship
An Introduction to MAHD Modified Agile for Hardware Development
AGILE FOR HARDWARE AND CROSS-DISCIPLINE TEAMS
Internet of Things: A Primer for Product Managers
Make: Digikey Development Board Guide
How to Build it: Lean Prototyping Techniques for Hardware
https://predictabledesigns.com/blog/
Food Entrepreneurship
From Concept To Commercialization-10 Steps To Getting Your Food Product To Market
Introduction to Starting a Small Food Business for Food Entrepreneurs
Dan Pashman Mission Impastable
Product Management
John Cutler – The Beautiful Mess
How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product Market Fit
Funding
VC, Investment, Strategy, etc. etc, etc.
SBIR and SBIR Program overview presentation
Equity Crowdfunding – Republic
Equity Crowdfunding – Startengine
Scott Galloway- No Mercy / No Malice
Ali Hamed and other Cross Stack
Startup Innovation – THE ACADEMIC HOMEPAGE OF ETHAN MOLLICK
Suppliers:
Electronics
Mechanical & Materials
Service Bureaus
Protolabs – 3D Printing, CNC, & Injection Molding