The 7 Best Startup Stories

Choose one for a fun read for the weekend

Startup stories are my favorite book genre (well, after epic fantasy…). Reading about a scrappy pair of friends in a garage, creating companies that transform industries - it’s super fun!

Today I chose 7 books I know you will enjoy. I created a list in BookWiz so you can easily browse them (with 3 bonus books!).

BookWiz is a side project I’m working on with Orel Zilberman.

In BookWiz you can go through popular lists and find your next read super easy.
Plus, you can save the books you want to read to your backlog and books you already read, so all your book research journey is done in one place.

We would love to hear any feedback, so we know what to work on next!

Source: The list in BookWiz

1. Amazon - The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone

2. Microsoft - Hit Refresh by Satya Nadela

3. Instagram - No Filter by Sarah Frier

4. Waze & Moovit - Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution by Uri Levine

5. Nest (+iPhone) - Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell

6. Nike - Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

7. Bonobos - Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind by Andy Dunn

I know those are not the classic startup stories (Especially Nike and Bonobos, who are not classic tech companies). Trust on this me, you’ll enjoy them, and the insights can be applied by any tech company!

1. Amazon

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone, 2013

Orel covered another book about Amazon - The Bezos Letters:

This is why Amazon is unbeatable

The Everything Store focuses on the origins - how an online book store became a trillion-dollar company, and Bezos the richest man on the planet (for a while). The book was written in 2013, so it doesn’t capture the latest growth, but the foundations of the main business were already present (AWS, food stores, the Kindle). 

The book also outlines Amazon’s many failures - unsuccessful acquisitions, the music business, the Google-competing search engine, and many more. It dives deep into how Jeff Bezos turned a simple online bookstore into Amazon, the giant that sells everything.

Useful Takeaway

For me, the biggest lesson is to think big, but start small. Bezos began with books, but he always planned to expand far beyond that. If he just aimed at books, Amazon wouldn’t have survived. If he tried to transform all retail from day one - it wouldn’t have survived either.

For a further read on Amazon’s culture, read those insider articles by Fran Soto:

1. Why Amazon's culture makes me a better engineer (5 principles) (Part 1)

2. 5 principles from Amazon’s culture to be a better engineer (Part 2)
   

2. Waze & Moovit

Fall in Love With the Problem, Not the Solution, by Uri Levine, 2023

Serial entrepreneurs are always interesting people to learn from. But how many people do you know who sold 2 companies (and 3rd on the way) for more than a billion dollars?

Levine sold Waze for to Google for $1.1B in 2013, and Moovit to Intel for $1B in 2020.

He is a great role model of an entrepreneur in my opinion - someone who has a problem that he experiences, and just decides to solve it:

“For me, it is always frustration that leads to understanding there is a problem. Then I try to figure out if it is a BIG PROBLEM—a problem worth solving. It is always the problem that triggers everything, and if the problem is significant, you can create a lot of value and become successful yourself by solving it.”

Useful Takeaway

First, sell your solution, and only then build it. Sounds crazy? See what Dell’s founder said in one of the earliest strategy meetings they had:

“…One of the guys wrote on the whiteboard, “We are going to do two things:
1) Build computers
2) and Sell computers.”

Michael (Dell’s founder) got up to the whiteboard and looked at it for a while, and then simply changed the order. “We are still going to do two things,” he said. “We first sell computers and only then will we build them.”

When you have a mindset of failing fast, every idea you have is a hypothesis that you need to validate.”

3. Microsoft

Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella, 2017

I know, I know, Microsoft is not a startup for a long time. But I think that the complete transformation that Nadella led in the last decade, is re-creating the company, and it is a worthy story.

When he started in 2014, Microsoft was already one of the most successful companies in the world, worth ~$300B. In the 10 years since Nadella replaced Balmer, the value grew 10X, and now it’s THE most valuable company in the world.

‘Hit Refresh’ is the Microsoft-oriented biography of Satya. He talks about his personal life, the birth of his disabled son, his lessons of empathy and caring, and how it all relates to his current role at Microsoft. 

Nadella tackles many important issues - privacy vs public safety and how should the government handle the issue, AI (before the OpenAI investment!), quantum mechanics, and mixed reality.

For him, the goal of Microsoft is to people be more productive and do stuff they enjoy in life. He shares how disabled people were helped using Microsoft technologies.

Useful Takeaway

Empathy (and a good story) can move mountains.

I never aimed to work in Big Tech, but after finishing this book I went to the Microsoft website, and searched if they had interesting open roles in my country (they didn’t)… Seriously.

After reading Nadella’s story, I knew that this is a man I’m willing to follow wherever he leads me.

4. Instagram

No Filter by Sarah Frier, 2020

While I’ve never used Instagram myself, I feel its huge presence all around me. This is one of those apps/inventions that affects the way we live. In Instagram’s case, it also influences what we eat, where we vacation, and what we do in our free time…

The book tells Instagram’s story from the beginning, through the Facebook acquisition and up until 2020, when Instagram’s founders resigned from Facebook.

You’ll read a detailed account of the fights with Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok and Facebook itself. It gives a very unpolished account of the life of the founders after an acquisition, all the tension and quarrels with the parent company, and how it was handled.

Useful Takeaway

Stay true to your vision and culture, even as you scale. The book encourages entrepreneurs to deeply consider the long-term implications of their decisions on the company's core essence.

5. Nike

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, 2016

I read this book in one go over a Saturday (before my child was born 😂), it is amazingly written! Humble, entertaining, funny, and emotional.

It tells the story of the first 20 years of Nike’s life, and the crazy path it followed. Always on the brink of bankruptcy, through fierce competition and endless flights to Japan, to innovation and market domination.

The story starts when Knight was 24, deciding to travel all around the world and on the way visit Japan and figure out a way to export cheap sports shoes to the US. That’s how Nike was started, as did many companies – in his parents’ basement, selling Japanese shoes.

Next follows 20 years of growth and struggle, and the fierce desire to win, and never quit.

Useful Takeaway

What is your company about? What do you stand for? For me, it’s important to work for a company that stands for something in this world, not just profits.

This great video (from 1:38) by Steve Jobs explains it better.

One of the greatest jobs of marketing in the universe has ever seen is Nike. Remember - Nike sells a commodity. They sell shoes. And yet, when you think of Nike - you feel something different than a shoe company.

In their ads as you know they don't ever talk about the product, they don't ever tell you about their air soles and why they're better than Reebok's air soles.

What does Nike do in their advertising, they honor great athletes and they honor great athletics. That's who they are, that's what they are about.

6. Nest (+iPhone)

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell, 2022,

Fadell is famous for building the iPhone at Apple. Later, he went on to founding Nest - a Thermostat company he sold to Google for $3B!

He has a unique approach to Product building, and there are tons of useful tips inside.

Useful Takeaway

This paragraph reminded me of the article ‘The KitKat method to winning 'Top-of-Mind' awareness’ by Tom Orbach from Marketing Ideas. How sticky is your product? What’s the moment you are part of?

Before the final launch, we had test drives of the installation, with some demo-users. We saw the installation took around 1 hour and were badly surprised - it was supposed to be an easy-to-install thermostat. If people got frustrated during the installation, it could fail the whole product.

We analyzed the process and saw that 30-40 minutes were spent just looking for the right screwdrivers. We felt relieved - the process itself was just 20-30 minutes, and not that hard.

But we didn't stop there. We could have written on the package '20 minutes installation', and finished with that.

But we understood the journey. We created an all-in-one screwdriver, with detaching heads, branded it, and put it inside the package.

Nest stayed in the customer’s minds, as long as the screwdriver stayed in their drawer.

Our product was good - but ultimately it was the whole journey that defined our brand.

7. Bonobos

Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind by Andy Dunn, 2022

This book is a bit different - it tells the story of Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos (sold to Walmart for $300M) who has Bipolar disorder.

It’s raw, honest, and emotional.

He provides first-person descriptions of Mania and Depression. In his matter-of-fact tone, he describes his outlandish thoughts, the violence, and the acts he would come to regret. The ability to live with it - marry, have a family.

As I have a close family member with the disorder, this book touched my heart.

Useful Takeaway

Turns out that mental illness in entrepreneurs is much more common than in the general public - nearly 72% of entrepreneurs suffer from mental health issue.

The issues are difficult, for everyone involved. But even with it, amazing things can be achieved.

The only solution is TO JUST TALK ABOUT IT! Those conversations shouldn’t be taboo!

What’s next?

If you finished all 7 books - don’t worry, we’ll be book with other suggestions, every week in your mailbox :)

Meanwhile, there are some great newsletters that tell the stories of the most interesting startups:

1.Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky

There are only 2 newsletters (so far) that I know I’m going to become a paid member of, and Lenny’s newsletter is one of them. It’s just a question of when.

I think this is the most famous newsletter in Substack, so you are probably already subscribed. If not - How Duolingo reignited user growth is a great article to start from.

2. The Pragmatic Engineer by Gergely Orosz

And this is the second newsletter I’m going to become a paid subscriber of :) (and is my favorite newsletter). Gergely talks about various tech topics, including insider-deep-dives into the most interesting companies.

His recent How does ChatGPT Ship So Quickly? is a fascinating read (even just the free version of it).

3. How They Grow by Jaryd Hermann

This newsletter is DEDICATED to breaking down successful startups. I’ve only recently found it, and I’m hooked.

How Figma grows - design beyond designers is my favorite so far.

4.Scaling SaaS -- from SaaStr by Jason M. Lemkin 🦄

Jason is the King of SaaS, and continuously covers SaaS companies as they grow. 5 Interesting Learnings from HubSpot at $2.4 Billion in ARR is a great example.

5. First 1000 by Ali Abouelatta

A newsletter about how founders got their first 1000 customers. This newsletter is a long-running one, with a great archive of gems! A relatively recent interesting one is Lessons from TechCrunch’s journey to 100,000 readers

6. Strategy Breakdowns by Tom Alder

Even though Tom is not on Substack, he deserves a mention :) Every week, he breaks down the strategy and go-to-market of various successful companies. I particularly enjoyed How come Hotmail is still used in 2024.

7. Tony Dinh's Newsletter by Tony Dinh

This one covers a single-man startup, that goes by the name of Tony :)

With 2 successful small exists, Tony is the guru of indie hackers and shares his journey of creating and maintaining multiple profitable products. Another 6-figure exit, and the future is a good article to start with.

Thank you for reading! We always love good recommendations of startup stories - if you recently read a great book or article, let us know in the comments!