So much of succeeding in the entrepreneurial ecosystem is constantly learning from others who’ve been there before. At Hyde Park Angels, we spend as much time teaching as we do learning, and we encourage all entrepreneurs to seek out resources to help them grow. Here are seven essential resources we think every entrepreneur (and investor) should learn from and share.
1) Venture Deals by Brad Feld: Venture Deals is at the top of almost any entrepreneur’s or investor’s list of essential reads because it takes apart difficult concepts like the economics of terms sheets and the laws around funding and makes them easy to understand. This should be every entrepreneur’s entry point into the world of venture capital.
2) Startup Stash by Bram Kanstein: There’s a reason this curated online directory of the world’s best resources for startups became the most updvoted product of all time on Product Hunt — you can get almost any startup question you have answered just by clicking on the site’s categorized tiles. Find everything from which newsletters to subscribe to and videos to watch to how to conduct your market research and put together mockups.
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3) The Founder’s Dilemmas by Noam Wasserman: The Founder’s Dilemmasdrives home that people and how they interact are the single most important part of a startup’s success or failure. Through countless case studies and stories from startups across the spectrum, Wasserman’s book helps you understand how choices about relationships will ultimately affect your business.
4) Rocketship.fm by Wistia: Rocketship.fm is a podcast that looks at all kinds of topics relevant to entrepreneurs like how to build an MVP, raise capital, and develop a selling strategy through podcast interviews with entrepreneurs and investors who’ve successfully done it. The episodes are roughly around twenty minutes each, which means you can knock out significant, skill-building chunks while stuck in traffic, meeting vendors, or even just walking to work.
5) REWORK by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson: As an entrepreneur, you have to be scrappy, hardworking, and immeasurably committed to your startup and its success. A lot of the time that means working around the clock and giving you entire life to your work. But that’s not the only way to succeed, and as REWORK shows, it may not even be the best way. Read this to learn how to work smart and build a team that works smart, too.
6) Mattermark Daily by Mattermark & Nick Frost: There’s so much content released every day that keeping up with it and figuring out what’s worth reading and using can feel like a full-time job. Mattermark Daily’s team reads all of the daily content produced from both investors and entrepreneurs and then picks the best to send out via its newsletter. The interface is simple and easy to read, and the content is always worth the time to read.
7) First Round Review by First Round Capital: The First Round Review produces the best long-form entrepreneurship articles out there. Its formula of building stories around interviews with people who have done something truly significant in the startup world makes remembering key lessons so much easier.
This post is part of the Hyde Park Angels Entrepreneurial Education Series, which brings together successful, influential entrepreneurs and investors to teach entrepreneurs everything they need to know about early-stage investment through events, articles, videos, and more. If you are interested in learning more about similar topics, register for “Connecting Corporations and Startups” on September 24.
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About Hyde Park Angels
Hyde Park Angels is the largest and most active angel group in the Midwest. With a membership of over 100 successful entrepreneurs, executives, and venture capitalists, the organization prides itself on providing critical strategic expertise to entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial community. By leveraging the members’ deep and broad knowledge of multiple industries and financial capital, Hyde Park Angels has driven multiple exits and invested millions of dollars in over 40 portfolio companies that have created over 850 jobs in the Midwest since 2006.
About the Author
Alida Miranda-Wolff
Alida Miranda-Wolff is Associate Manager at Hyde Park Angels. Her role includes creating and executing marketing and communications strategies, planning and managing events, fostering and maintaining community and industry partnerships, and managing membership. Prior to joining Hyde Park Angels, Alida served as a manager, data analyst, and publication specialist at a multibillion dollar industrial supply corporation. She has led one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns in Chicago history and worked with half a dozen startups in various marketing, content creation, and project management roles. Alida believes in creating valuable, spreadable multimedia content, and has done so as a freelance writer for several print and online publications.
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