For Beginners
Which books to read if you are starting a career in Growth?
10 books to read for a career in Growth, comprehensively covering all the skills.
Tech Startup fundamentals
Zero To One by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
A great intro to the counter-intuitive world of startups: Why competition is for losers; Why 10x innovation matters more; Why power law dominates everything. This book is a perfect Startup 101.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
This book is to Growth what Agile methodology is to the world of software. Introduces build-measure-learn loop as the experimentation framework. And, why ‘validated learning’, and NOT tracking output numbers like users or revenue, is the right goal in startups.
Growth & Digital Distribution Frameworks
Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown
Not about fads and tactics, truly fundamental. Introduces the concept of testing PMF before growing. Goes into best practices of each part of AARRR framework.
Traction by Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares
Introduces a comprehensive list & best practices for all ‘Traction channels’. Introduces ‘bullseye’ framework to test channel ideas.
Marketing
Influence by Robert Cialdini
A ‘how the world works’ guide. Lays down a neat framework of all the modes of persuasion. The single most important book for me while working on campaign and content planning.
22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al ries & Jack Trout
Hit-and-miss book at times, but a lot of invaluable wisdom. Especially about dynamics of category and brand. A toss-up between this & ‘The CEO factory’ by Sudhir Sitapati.
Analytics
Data Science for Business by Foster Provost & Tom Fawcett
Covers important analytics concepts but from an applied lens of business problems.
Conversion Optimization & User Lifecycle
Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
A great intro to user experience, for generalists. A lot of great advice we intuitively get but conveniently ignore in our own projects.
Hooked by Nir Eyal
Great starter on concepts of habit loop, variable rewards, and so on. And in the context of customer engagement rather than self-help.
Managing people & processes
High Output Management by Andrew Grove
If ‘Influence’ is the ‘how the world works’ guide, this is THE ‘how companies (should) work’ guide. I am ready to budge on my position on other books, but not on this one. Should be mandatory reading, imo, when people are promoted to manager for the first time.