Ryan Hoover

Founder of Product Hunt

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Book Recommendations:

RH

Recommended by Ryan Hoover

@mattmochary P.S. Matt's book, The Great CEO Within, is free on Google Docs: https://t.co/cOwvPs5FGF It's well worth the read. Very concise and actionable. (from X)

The Great CEO Within: The Tactical Guide to Company Building book cover

by Matt Mochary, Alex Maccaw, Misha Talavera·You?

Matt Mochary coaches the CEOs of many of the fastest-scaling technology companies in Silicon Valley. With The Great CEO Within, he shares his highly effective leadership and business-operating tools with any CEO or manager in the world. Learn how to efficiently scale your business from startup to corporation by implementing a system of accountability, effective problem-solving, and transparent feedback. Becoming a great CEO requires training. For a founding CEO, there is precious little time to complete that training, especially at the helm of a rapidly growing company. Now you have the guidance you need in one book.

RH

Recommended by Ryan Hoover

@DrewDouglass @yourstacks Best book I’ve read in years (from X)

An international bestseller and TikTok sensation with more than 10 million copies sold worldwide, The Courage to Be Disliked is a transformative and practical guide to personal happiness and self-fulfillment. Now you can unlock your full potential and free yourself from the shackles of past traumas and societal expectations to find true personal happiness. Based on the theories of renowned psychologist Alfred Adler, this book guides you through the principles of self-forgiveness, self-care, and mind decluttering in a straightforward, easy-to-digest style that’s accessible to all. The Courage to Be Disliked unfolds as a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, who, over the course of five enriching conversations, realizes that each of us is in control of our life’s direction, independent of past burdens and expectations of others. Wise, empowering, and profoundly liberating, this book is a life-changing experience that shows you a path to lasting happiness and how to finally be the person you truly want to be. Millions are already benefiting from its teachings—and you can be next.

RH

Recommended by Ryan Hoover

💕 @catana_comics. Buy this book for your boo: https://t.co/iqq7pYJyXK https://t.co/eYtYeAcuPn (from X)

Little Moments of Love book cover

by Catana Chetwynd·You?

#1 New York Times bestselling author Catana Chetwynd presents Little Moments of Love, a sweet collection of comics about the simple, precious, silly, everyday moments that make up a relationship. What began as stray doodles on scraps of paper became an internet sensation when Catana Chetwynd’s boyfriend shared her drawings online. Now, Catana Comics touches millions of readers with its sweet, relatable humor. Little Moments of Love collects just that – the little moments that are the best parts of being with the person you love.

RH

Recommended by Ryan Hoover

We need more startups. But many never get the funding they need to fulfill their true potential. This Guide is designed to empower founders with the insights and strategies to find investors that share their same convictions. as the founders themselves. (from Amazon)

This guide is the most comprehensive resource of its kind available, with contribution and review from experienced founders, lawyers, and investors—including Brad Feld, José Ancer, Camille Ricketts, Leo Polovets, Clerky co-founders Darby Wong and Chris Field, Danielle Morrill, Joe Wallin (co-author of the Holloway book, Angel Investing: Start to Finish), and many more. It will help any founder raise the right way, with confidence. This print edition includes lifetime digital access to additional features and future updates at Holloway.com. Venture capital is a powerful tool for entrepreneurship—one that can help overcome some of the challenges of starting and scaling a new business. It’s notoriously easy for founders to take wrong turns in their path to financing a company—but many mistakes are avoidable with the right knowledge. Author Andy Sparks is a three-time founder whose goal is helping entrepreneurs avoid pain, costly mistakes, and fruitless research. Topics covered include: Assessing whether to raiseDetermining how much to raise and understanding how valuation and dilution are connected to how much you raiseChoosing a financing structureCreating a target list of investorsDesigning and delivering your pitch and what to expect in investor meetingsEverything a founder needs to know about term sheets (created with startup lawyers!), including sample term sheetsThis book also includes appendices on networking and mentorship for founders, how venture capitalists make money (think returns, management fees, and carried interest), and a list of example pitch decks. Raising venture capital isn’t inevitable for every startup or every founder. The best founders go into the process of raising money with their eyes wide open to all the possibilities, including alternate ways to raise, and the options available to them, from financing structures to pitch designs to what terms to fight for. They can anticipate the next steps in the process before they begin, and ask themselves the important questions along the way. They know what will change between each round, and what to keep an eye out for when it comes to risks and pitfalls. They’ll know how those good relationships—with investors, other founders, their team, and their customers—are the most important part of building a successful company, and they know just how to find, foster, and sustain those relationships. Let the Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital be there for you, the trusted friend you can turn to again and again.

RH

Recommended by Ryan Hoover

Management Information Systems book cover

by Ken J. Sousa, Effy Oz·You?

Drawing from the latest developments and practices from the field, MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS, 7e combines a wealth of case studies and real-world examples to provide a clear emphasis on the business and management elements of information technology. The new edition offers the most current coverage available, including expanded discussions of social networking, IT security, mobile computing, and much more. From overviews of the information age to online business and business intelligence, readers gain a sound balance of the technical and business elements of information technology. In addition, numerous business cases integrated throughout the text enable readers to apply what they learn to real-world practice--equipping them with skills they can immediately put into action in the business world.

RH

Recommended by Ryan Hoover

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.

RH

Recommended by Ryan Hoover

Revised and Updated, Featuring a New Case Study 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.

RH

Recommended by Ryan Hoover

The Art of Game Design guides you through the design process step-by-step, helping you to develop new and innovative games that will be played again and again. It explains the fundamental principles of game design and demonstrates how tactics used in classic board, card and athletic games also work in top-quality video games. Good game design happens when you view your game from as many perspectives as possible, and award-winning author Jesse Schell presents over 100 sets of questions to ask yourself as you build, play and change your game until you finalise your design. This latest third edition includes examples from new VR and AR platforms as well as from modern games such as Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us, Free to Play games, hybrid games, transformational games, and more. Whatever your role in video game development an understanding of the principles of game design will make you better at what you do. For over 10 years this book has provided inspiration and guidance to budding and experienced game designers - helping to make better games faster.