Appendix E

FURTHER READING

Here are your top dozen books to read next:

The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step by Step Guide to Building a Great Company by Steve Blank and Bob Dorf, K & S Ranch, 2012 – it’s all about the customer – discovery, validation, creation and development, hand-in-hand with agile engineering.

The FT Essential Guide to Developing a Business Strategy: How to Use Strategic Planning to Start Up or Grow Your Business by Vaughan Evans, FT Publishing, 2013 – the companion to this book, taking the reader step by step through the process, summarised in Chapter 5 of this book, of creating a winning business strategy.

Strategy, Plain and Simple: 3 Steps to Building a Business Strategy for Your Startup or Growing Business by Vaughan Evans, FT Publishing, 2018 – the strategy-in-a-nutshell, jargon-free version of the above, readable in 60 minutes.

Key Strategy Tools: The 88 Tools for Every Manager to Build a Winning Strategy by Vaughan Evans, FT Publishing, 2nd edition, 2020 – the leading-edge tools needed for each step of the strategy development process, each described succinctly and the reader guided on how and when to use it – and when to be wary.

Backing U!: A Business-Oriented Guide to Backing Your Passion and Achieving Career Success by Vaughan Evans, Business and Careers Press, 2009 – how to apply the tools of business analysis to your own prospects for career development or change, including starting UCo, your own company.

Stand, Speak, Deliver! 37 Short Speeches on How to Survive – and Thrive – in Public Speaking and Presenting by Vaughan Evans, Little Brown, 2016 – 37 pithy, lively, entertaining speeches on each of the most important aspects of the art, as summarised for pitching your business plan in Chapter 10 of this book.

Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense: Why Some Organisations Consistently Outperform Others by Jules Goddard and Tony Eccles, Profile, 2012 – one of the most readable and stimulating books on strategy (for example, what did BMW spot in the Mini that previous owners hadn’t?).

Contemporary Strategy Analysis by Robert M. Grant, Blackwell, 10th edition, 2019 – the textbook bible since the 1980s for business students of strategy analysis.

The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Executives Should Do Before Writing a Business Plan by John Mullins, FT Prentice Hall, 5th edition, 2017– strategy made real for business start-ups.

Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, John Wiley, 2014 – the authors of Business Model Generation again offer a stimulating, visual, right-side-of-the-brain approach to business.

How to Start a Creative Business: The Jargon-free Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs by Doug Richard, David & Charles, 2013 – oodles of hot tips on what to do and what not to do in starting a business, from an entrepreneur who has seen and done it all many times over.

The Financial Times Guide to Business Start Up 2019/20 by Sara Williams, FT Publishing, 31st edition, 2019 – the comprehensive, regularly updated guide on the practicalities of getting a business going.