There’s just something about books isn’t there? The tactile nature of turning a page, the smell of the paper as you crack the spine for the first time, the stories, words and ideas swirling round your head long after you’ve closed the cover. Â
With so much content out there, from blogs, Q&As, podcasts and bitesize videos it’s easier than ever to find the answer to your questions, but what if the real magic lies in the unknown?
The right book can present a question you didn’t know needed answering, an idea you would have never considered before, inspiration and motivation you didn’t realize you needed.
So take a journey with us, off the beaten path with a selection of the best SaaS reads out there, compiled in part by our Slack community, a good deal of research and some first-hand recommendations.
*Amazon prices correct at time of writing*
The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures - Erin Meyer
Whether you're currently working from your bedroom at home or a boardroom abroad, business success in our increasingly  globalized world requires the skills to navigate thoughtfully through cultural differences.
In The Culture Map, Erin Meyer provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business.
This book combines smart, analytical frameworks with practical, actionable advice which can be utilized by CEOs, marketers, and sales representatives alike.
Paperback: $11.16
Kindle: $8.36
Available at Amazon HERE
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail - Clayton M. Christensen
What kind of business book listicle would this be if it didn’t include this seminal classic.?
Cited by the world’s most renowned thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell, innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen has written the definitive guide on disruption innovation.
Featuring the success and failures of leading companies as a guide, Christensen proves that no matter the industry or how successful your business is, established products will be pushed aside if leaders can’t and won’t abandon traditional business practices.
Forbes named him “...one of the most influential business theorists of the last fifty years.” and who are we to argue with that?
Paperback: $21.88
Hardcover: $26.65
Kindle edition: $19.04
Audio CD: $30.05
Available at Amazon HERE
How to Castrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business - Dave Hitz
One of the more off-the-wall titles in the list, How to Castrate a Bull is full of colorful anecdotes about how powerful business lessons often come from strange and unexpected places.
Before he was the Founder of NetApp, a data storage firm currently raking in $4 billion a year, Dave Hitz was a cowboy, and it’s this transition from high school dropout, to cowboy, to Silicon Valley icon that makes this book so wildly entertaining. Dave looks to the future by deconstructing the past, with humor and incredible business insight.
Hardcover: $30.70
Kindle Edition: $24.56
Digital Download: $25.06
Available at Amazon HERE
The Hard Thing About Hard Things - Ben Horrowitz
Based on his popular blog, ben’s blog’, Horrowitz, offers essential (and astonishingly honest) advice on building and running a startup, using his personal experience as the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz.
A lifelong rap fanatic, Horowitz weaves business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, addressing diverse topics from firing friends to poaching the competition.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a funny and insightful guide to dealing with the tougher aspects of starting and scaling a business.
Hardcover: $21.07
Kindle Edition: $16.74
Audio CD: $ 43.28
Available on Amazon HERE
Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue - by Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy
Whether this is your first step into a recurring revenue business model or you need to revamp your SaaS company into the big leagues, this game-changing book gives you the understanding and tools you're looking for, including:
- The Ten Laws of Customer Success, including real-world examples, and customized information for different business needs
- How cloud technology has redefined customer success and what a customer-centric company needs to do to maintain a competitive edge
- An in-depth look at the critical technology required for outstanding customer success
- Easy-to-understand approaches to capturing the sophisticated metrics that drive prosperous customer-centric programs
Practical, insightful, and comes highly recommended by Jim Steele, President and Chief Customer Officer of Salesforce.
Hardcover: $22.33
Kindle Edition: $21.21
Audio CD: 37.86
Available at Amazon HERE
Growth Hacker Marketing - Ryan Holiday
Growth Hacker Marketing is a digestible explanation of this new, disruptive marketing phenomenon while offering real strategies and actionable tactics for engineers, marketers, ad execs,entrepreneurs and everyone in between.
A fantastic primer for anyone looking to get to grips with growth hacking.
Paperback: $9.84
Kindle Edition: $2.64
Available on Amazon HERE
From Impossible to Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue - Aaron Ross & Jason Lemkin
From Impossible to Inevitable distills the seven ingredients of hypergrowth into actionable goals, with a matter-of-fact, no-nonsense approach to growing revenue.
The template outlined in the book has been used successfully by the likes of salesforce.com, Twilio, Hubspot, Marketo, and Zuora. Whether you run a multi-million-dollar company or a small start-up, there’s lessons for fast growth to benefit everyone.
Hardcover: $14.46
Kindle Edition: $13.74
Available on Amazon HERE
The SaaS Sales Method: Sales as a Science - Jacco Van Der Kooij, Fernando Pizarro, Winning by Design, Dominique Levin
A must-read for sales leaders in SaaS. Practical, to the point, and actionable.
Unpack the sales process, learn how to implement a sales system mapped to the buyer's journey, and build a predictable and scalable sales engine.
Thanks to its visual aids and straightforward advice, the SaaS Sales Method makes the science behind sales simple.
Paperback: $37.32
Kindle Edition: $37.32
Available on Amazon HERE
Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers - Geoffrey A. Moore
Crossing the Chasm is the bestselling guide to bringing cutting-edge products to progressively larger markets and includes a special emphasis on the internet, and the realities of high-tech marketing.
Moore certainly knows his stuff - Â an author, speaker, and advisor who splits his consulting time between start-up companies in the Mohr Davidow and Wildcat Venture Partners portfolio and established high-tech enterprises, most recently including Salesforce, Microsoft, Intel, Box, Aruba, Cognizant, and Rackspace.
Paperback: $6.47
Available on Amazon HERE
Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content - Ann Handley
Everybody Writes explains how to attract and retain customers using great content.
Marketing veteran, Anne Handley’s theory is that inside all of us is a great writer because let’s face it: in a world driven by content, we’re all writers - in one way or another, and Everybody Writes offers expert guidance and insight into the process and strategy of content creation, production, and publishing, with actionable how-to advice designed to get results across web pages, home pages, landing pages, blogs, email, marketing offers, and all forms of social media.
This is the go-to guide for anyone creating or publishing any kind of online content — whether you're a big brand, small startup, or flying solo.
Hardcover: $19.30
Kindle Edition: $18.34
MP3 CD: $11.48
Available on Amazon HERE
The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn if Your Business is a Good Idea When Everyone is Lying to You - Rob Fitzpatrick
Rob Fitzpatrick writes from experience. Originally a programmer who was far more comfortable behind a screen than in a meeting, he was forced into figuring out enterprise sales at his first startup, where he learned that it's not as straightforward as the business books tend to claim.
Expect actionable, unpretentious advice, practical methods, and tons of examples.
Paperback: $28.66
Kindle Edition: $11.12
Available on Amazon HERE
Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action - Simon Sinek
You might be familiar with Sinek and his wildly popular TED Talks on leadership. Equally as engaging is his book,Start with Why, which shows that the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way - and it's the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this The Golden Circle and provides a framework upon which organizations can be built and people can be inspired.
Hardcover: $44.54
Paperback: $9.73
Kindle Edition: $11.12
Available on Amazon HERE
Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success - Morgan Brown & Sean Ellis
Written by the co-founders of Growthhackers.com, Hacking Growth is designed for any company or leader looking to break out of the traditional marketing rut.
A highly accessible and practical method that highlights how to set up and run your growth team, identify and test growth levers, and adopt a proactive approach to results.
Hardcover: $30.80
Paperback: $14.18
Kindle Edition: $13.90
Available on Amazon HERE
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products - Nir Eyal
At its heart, Hooked is a guide to building products people love.
Based on years of research and personal experience, Eyal wrote the book he wished he’d had to hand when he was  starting out. No abstract theory, just solid, actionable steps to building better products.
Whether you're a product manager, designer, marketer, or start-up founder this book’s for anyone who wants to better understand how products influence our behavior.
Hardcover: $14.60
Kindle Edition: $12.51
MP3 CD: $21.60
Available on Amazon HERE
Lean Analytics - Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster - Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz
Lean Analytics provides the reader with invaluable, hard-won, real-world information. Packed with over thirty case studies and insights from over 100 business experts, if you’re looking to understand lean start-ups, analytics fundamentals, and the data-driven mindset, then this is the book for you.
Hardcover: $31.79
Paperback: $70.03
Kindle Edition: $18.08
Available on Amazon HERE
Retention Point: The Single Biggest Secret to Membership and Subscription Growth - Robert Skrob
With over 25 years of membership growth experience under his belt, Robert Skrob takes a personal approach to helping SaaS companies retain customers in this insightful, easy-to-digest guide to retention.
Tap into case studies, personal anecdotes, and the key ingredients to keep your members coming back for more.
Paperback: $10.49
Kindle Edition: $4.33
Available on Amazon HERE
The SaaS Email Marketing Playbook - Étienne Garbugli
Andrus Purde, Founder & CEO of Outfunnel called this book: “A great no BS resource where you are guaranteed to pick up useful tips and approaches, whether you’re an email pro or just starting out."
The SaaS Email Marketing Playbook includes:
- How and when to create new emails or in app messages to influence your users’ behaviors and purchase decisions,
- How to improve the performance of every single email you send;
- How to stand out in an increasingly more crowded inbox; and how to create processes and structure to systematically grow the performance of an email marketing program.
You don’t need to be a master copywriter to send effective emails, but you do need to pick up this book.
Paperback: $27.82
Available on Amazon HERE
The Sales Acceleration Formula - Mark Roberge
As SVP of Worldwide Sales and Services for software company HubSpot, Roberge led hundreds of his employees to the acquisition and retention of the company's first 10,000 customers across more than 60 countries. This book outlines his approach and provides an actionable plan for others looking to replicate his success.
The Sales Acceleration Formula sets out to prove that in today's digital world, in which every action is logged and masses of data sit at our fingertips, building a sales team is no longer an art form. There’s a process and it sits between these pages.
Hardcover: $20.86
Kindle Edition: $19.82
MP3 CD: $33.10
Available on Amazon HERE
