Business and entrepreneurship have a special place in my heart; especially entrepreneurship. When I buy a book, nine times out of ten it is about business. However, I don’t love to read, so I used Audible to help me reach my goal of reading 12 books in 2014. I went and crushed that goal.
Here are the books, mostly about Business and Entrepreneurship, that I read in 2014. I give each my own brief review, and share the number of stars each got and how long it takes to listen to them. I also include a link to where you can find it on Audible.
Here are the Stats
Books Read: 16
Total Duration of Books: 118+ Hours (4.9 Days)
Total Time to “Read” All of them with Audible: 59 Hours (2.95 Days)
I listened to these books while working out, traveling, mowing the lawn, etc.,
Hopefully you can find this business book list/hack helpful as you pick and choose what you want to read next year.
[feature_headline type=”left” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h2″ icon=”book”]Online Business[/feature_headline]
Don’t judge a book by it’s title. This book isn’t about how to get likes on social media.
Favorite quote from the book: “People trust and choose to believe people that they like and trust.”
Duration: 6 hrs and 35 mins
Stars on Audible: 3.56
It was very interesting, but I give a book 6 or so chapters and then decide if it is worth my time. I didn’t finish this one because I wasn’t gaining much applicable knowledge.
Favorite part of the book: The story of laying new cables with the shortest distance to the data centers to get the fastest internet speeds to make the fastest stock trades.
Duration: 10 hrs and 13 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.30
Think about it. You have one place where 1.3 Billion people from around the world actively meet each month. Author David Kirkpatrick explores what that means for mankind.
Favorite part of the book: I was fascinated by a story of protests that were organized and started in Colombia.
Duration: 15 hrs and 42 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.10
[feature_headline type=”left” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h2″ icon=”book”]Entrepreneurship[/feature_headline]
Raising funding is scary business. Just like everything that comes out of Hollywood, ABC’s Shark Tank leaves out lots of the details.
Favorite part of the book: I have a funded startup, in the process of raising round 2, so everything was very applicable to me. Boring for non-entrepreneurs.
Duration: 7 hrs and 23 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.10
The hindsight and perspective of successful entrepreneurs is very valuable to other budding entrepreneurs. The author of this book, Peter Thiel, founded PayPal. He is brilliant. He is contrarian. He talks about entrepreneurs doing new things that have never been done before and how they are the builders of the future. This was my FAVORITE READ OF THE YEAR.
Duration: 4 hrs and 50 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.40
A business you’ve probably never heard of is Return Path. They’ve done email marketing automation for 14 years and they’re worth millions. Matt Blumberg, the founder, has written the field guide on being the CEO of a startup.
Unique part of the book: His wife wrote one of the chapters about being the wife of a startup CEO. Loved it.
Duration: 12 hrs and 48 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.21
Every business pro should read this book…with a grain of salt. Eric Ries’ thoughts are good for all. Entrepreneur or not.
Quote from the book: “Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.”
Duration: 8 hrs and 43 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.30
Shark Tank – Jump Start Your Business
This one is free on Audible if you want to use this book to test out Audible.
All of the sharks share advice on the different aspects of launching a business. There are too many small gems to quote just one. This many successful entrepreneurs sharing wisdom in one book made it a winner for me.
Duration: 6 hrs and 5 mins
Stars on Audible: 3.70
Noam Wasserman is a professor at Harvard Business school. His writing is based on his research of failed startups. I like to learn from others mistakes. Loved this.
Quote from the book: “It’s unfortunate, but true, if entrepreneurship is a battle, most casualties stem from friendly fire or self-inflicted wounds.”
Duration: 13 hrs and 29 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.20
[feature_headline type=”left” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h2″ icon=”book”]For Entertainment[/feature_headline]
I have always said that wrestlers are some of the toughest athletes. I’m biased. When I say that US Navy Seals must be the toughest military men in the world, most would agree. Marcus Luttrell’s account of his time in Seal Training (torture) is eye-opening and inspiring. Warning: he cusses like most soldiers.
Duration: 5 hrs and 14 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.40
[feature_headline type=”left” level=”h2″ looks_like=”h2″ icon=”book”]General Business[/feature_headline]
This one comes from the founder of Keller-Williams, the real estate behemoth.
Concept and premise: Keller says you can’t do more than one thing at once. He shares examples to prove his point, then the rest of the time he focuses on how to pick “the one thing” to be working on.
Duration: 5 hrs and 28 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.20
By now you have noticed a trend. I like to read books written by successful entrepreneurs. Biz Stone wrote this one and tells about his experiences co-founding Twitter. I loved when he recounted his experience at SXSW, and when he recounts his experience dealing with site downtime and the infamous Twitter #failwhale.
Duration: 6 hrs and 19 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.10
Shane Snow shares how successful people get to success in short order. Bias disclaimer: I pre-ordered this one in hard copy. Shane and I took an internet marketing class together at BYU – Idaho. In fact, we took a handful of classes together there. That said, check out his reviews on Audible. I’m not the only one that likes this book.
Duration: 5 hrs and 55 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.10
Greatest Salesman in the World
Og Mandino is a world famous author. His books and their teachings are timeless. If you like self-help books, this is a great one. Not my favorite of the year, by far, but it is a quick read, and worth the listen. He teaches 10 principles, through a story, about how to become “the greatest salesman in the world.”
Duration: 2 hrs and 19 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.20 based on 539 reviews!
I thought I would like this one because the author shares insights from 200+ CEOs. Cliche examples and tons of commonsensical insights left me wanting. I gave up on it about half way through. So many of the ideas for being “quick and nimble” came across as the real reasons why US business culture is anything but that. Harsh…I know.
Duration: 7 hrs and 34 mins
Stars on Audible: 3.30
By the reviews on Audible, it looks like I am fairly alone on not loving this one. Sometimes the over-simplified common sense just gets to me as a reader. Other times I love it. I couldn’t buy into this one and stopped about halfway through, and that is saying something cause this one is short. The TL;DR of this book is this: be positive and hire positive people.
Duration: 2 hrs and 53 mins
Stars on Audible: 4.20
Search Audible for your next read:
Do you like Audible? Have you read any of the books listed? Let me know in the comments.