Startup Blogs To Make You a Better Entrepreneur
As an aspiring startup founder, I’m always on the lookout for blogs that will help me become a more adept entrepreneur. Fortunately for me and for the startup community there’s a lot of really talented entrepreneurs who write regularly about what they’ve learned so you can benefit from their experiences.
The following is a list of the best startup blogs that I’ve run across, which I thought I’d share in the hope that you find something new for your collection. In no particular order…
- Derek Sivers – Founder of CD Baby and several other companies, the word “wise” comes to mind. His post Let pedestrians define the walkways is always in the back of my head while I’m working on my startup.
- Gabriel Weinberg – Ballsy Philadelphia-based founder of Duck Duck Go, an inspirational (and quite successful) one-man search engine startup. Really nice guy too.
- IIlya Lichtenstein – Internet marketer who recently helped more than 150 startups with their marketing efforts and wrote about the lessons learned in a series of great blog posts.
- Jason Baptiste – Boston-based cofounder of PadPressed. His posts on startups are some of the best I’ve read. See, for example, If You Build It, They Won’t Come (something I’ve learned the hard way) and 16 Ways Your Startup Needs to be Getting Customers.
- Eric Ries – Eric has changed the way people approach building startups with the Lean Startup movement. He also coined the phrase Minimum Viable Product, which is now common lingo in the startup world.
- Ben Cashnocha – An all around brilliant guy, he writes on topics including entrepreneurship, travel, and philosophy.
- OnStartups – By Dharmesh Shah and others, it offers troves of invaluable advice for startup founders in posts that always seem to begin with a number.
- Jason Cohen – Another very successful startup founder who writes about how to do it well. Rich vs King: Why I Sold My Company and Why I feel like a fraud are great places to start.
- Paul Graham of Y Combinator fame — his essays are essential reading for startup founders.
- Rob Walling – Software by Rob is a new addition to the list. I recently read his new book Start Small, Stay Small and immediately identified with his approach. Highly recommended for anyone running or aspiring to run a small online business.
- Matt Maroon – Former poker player turned YC-backed startup founder of Blue Frog Gaming, Matt excels at seeing the big picture and articulating it for his readers (just not on HackerNews).
- Chris Dixon – Cofounder of Hunch and active angel investor who writes on investing, technology, social media, etc.
- Mixergy – An excellent series of interviews by Andrew Warner, who relentlessly pursues the execution details behind many successful startups.
- Sebastian Marshall – Sebastian offers practical advice drawn from a breadth of knowledge and experience on how to excel at just about anything. Here‘s an inspiring post from yesterday and here‘s a list of his top posts.
- Balsamiq Products Blog – The more I work on jMockups, the more impressed I am with Balsamiq’s incredible execution. Too bad I’m going to destroy them (just kidding… maybe). :)
- Steve Blank – Former Air Force officer turned Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, Steve invented the Customer Development process which is the foundation of the Lean Startup movement.
- Patrick McKenzie – Of Bingo Card Creator and soon-t0-be Appointment Reminder fame, he inspired me to create Preceden, a web-based timeline tool.
- Spencer Fry – Creator of Carbonmade, a site for designers that lets you show off your portfolio, who writes about entrepreneurship, freemium, and more.
- Jacques Mattheij – A pillar of the HackerNews community and thought leader in earning money from web apps, Jacques’s blog is not one to miss.
- Daniel Tenner – Cofounder of Woobius, who puts things in perspective with posts like iPad: Apple for Mom and The questionable value of the real time web.
- This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis
- Furqan Nazeeri – Boston-based serial entrepreneur who writes about startups, venture capital, and entrepreneurship
- Seth Godin – Seth is a brilliant marketer and businessman who shares his seemingly endless supply of insights via his blog. He’s also got some great books including Small is the New Big and The Purple Cow.
- Mark Suster at BothSidesOfTheTable – Musing of an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. I came across his blog via his post How to Talk to Investors About Your Competitors.
And two non-startup blogs that you might also like:
- Less Wrong – Less Wrong is about how to think better–a lot of it will make you go whoa. For example, check out Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism.
- David Mangold – Dave is a big picture, outside-of-the-box intellectual who writes about topics including evolution, astrobiology, metaphysics, and more.
The following is a list of the best startup blogs that I’ve run across, which I thought I’d share in the hope that you find something new for your collection. In no particular order…
- Derek Sivers – Founder of CD Baby and several other companies, the word “wise” comes to mind. His post Let pedestrians define the walkways is always in the back of my head while I’m working on my startup.
- Gabriel Weinberg – Ballsy Philadelphia-based founder of Duck Duck Go, an inspirational (and quite successful) one-man search engine startup. Really nice guy too.
- IIlya Lichtenstein – Internet marketer who recently helped more than 150 startups with their marketing efforts and wrote about the lessons learned in a series of great blog posts.
- Jason Baptiste – Boston-based cofounder of PadPressed. His posts on startups are some of the best I’ve read. See, for example, If You Build It, They Won’t Come (something I’ve learned the hard way) and 16 Ways Your Startup Needs to be Getting Customers.
- Eric Ries – Eric has changed the way people approach building startups with the Lean Startup movement. He also coined the phrase Minimum Viable Product, which is now common lingo in the startup world.
- Ben Cashnocha – An all around brilliant guy, he writes on topics including entrepreneurship, travel, and philosophy.
- OnStartups – By Dharmesh Shah and others, it offers troves of invaluable advice for startup founders in posts that always seem to begin with a number.
- Jason Cohen – Another very successful startup founder who writes about how to do it well. Rich vs King: Why I Sold My Company and Why I feel like a fraud are great places to start.
- Paul Graham of Y Combinator fame — his essays are essential reading for startup founders.
- Rob Walling – Software by Rob is a new addition to the list. I recently read his new book Start Small, Stay Small and immediately identified with his approach. Highly recommended for anyone running or aspiring to run a small online business.
- Matt Maroon – Former poker player turned YC-backed startup founder of Blue Frog Gaming, Matt excels at seeing the big picture and articulating it for his readers (just not on HackerNews).
- Chris Dixon – Cofounder of Hunch and active angel investor who writes on investing, technology, social media, etc.
- Mixergy – An excellent series of interviews by Andrew Warner, who relentlessly pursues the execution details behind many successful startups.
- Sebastian Marshall – Sebastian offers practical advice drawn from a breadth of knowledge and experience on how to excel at just about anything. Here‘s an inspiring post from yesterday and here‘s a list of his top posts.
- Balsamiq Products Blog – The more I work on jMockups, the more impressed I am with Balsamiq’s incredible execution. Too bad I’m going to destroy them (just kidding… maybe). :)
- Steve Blank – Former Air Force officer turned Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, Steve invented the Customer Development process which is the foundation of the Lean Startup movement.
- Patrick McKenzie – Of Bingo Card Creator and soon-t0-be Appointment Reminder fame, he inspired me to create Preceden, a web-based timeline tool.
- Spencer Fry – Creator of Carbonmade, a site for designers that lets you show off your portfolio, who writes about entrepreneurship, freemium, and more.
- Jacques Mattheij – A pillar of the HackerNews community and thought leader in earning money from web apps, Jacques’s blog is not one to miss.
- Daniel Tenner – Cofounder of Woobius, who puts things in perspective with posts like iPad: Apple for Mom and The questionable value of the real time web.
- This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis
- Furqan Nazeeri – Boston-based serial entrepreneur who writes about startups, venture capital, and entrepreneurship
- Seth Godin – Seth is a brilliant marketer and businessman who shares his seemingly endless supply of insights via his blog. He’s also got some great books including Small is the New Big and The Purple Cow.
- Mark Suster at BothSidesOfTheTable – Musing of an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. I came across his blog via his post How to Talk to Investors About Your Competitors.
And two non-startup blogs that you might also like:
- Less Wrong – Less Wrong is about how to think better–a lot of it will make you go whoa. For example, check out Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism.
- David Mangold – Dave is a big picture, outside-of-the-box intellectual who writes about topics including evolution, astrobiology, metaphysics, and more.