Ideas Then Lemonade | Julian Weisser

10 Gifts to Give Yourself

People mean well when they get you presents but often you know what gifts are more practical than they do.  Here’s a list of the top ten things to give yourself to improve your knowledge of entrepreneurship, investing, and technology.  Though targeted at entrepreneurs, I feel like much of this list would be very useful for people pursuing music careers either solo or with a band.

• The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup: this is one of those books that changes the way you think about starting a company and who you co-found with.  I suggest this for musicians because you will likely face the same issues that founders of tech startups face.  Bands are the leanest of startups and things can get ugly or painful quickly.

• Treehouse subscription: Have you ever wanted to build an app? How about build a website for your business or band? Stop wasting your time messing around with templates that look incredibly derivative and learn how to do it yourself. Treehouse has some of the best instructional videos I’ve seen online. There is student pricing available if you email them a recent transcript.

• The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?: Seth Godin’s latest book is all about treating your work like an artform. Not out yet but his track record guarantees this will be brilliant.

• Mastering the VC Game: Written by Jeffrey Bussgang of Boston’s Flybridge Capital, this is a fascinating look at the world of Venture Capital.  Jeff has been on both sides of the entrepreneurial equation so he can explain VCs in a way that entrepreneurs will understand.  This is also covers some truly interesting Boston startup history that younger entrepreneurs may not be familiar with.

• Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup: This is as much a book about fast iteration as it is an insight into the culture and rapid prototyping of TechStars, a premier startup accelerator that has locations across the country.

• The Lean Startup: This is the book that will change the way you think about business and developing ideas. It’s another book for startups that I cannot recommend enough to bands.

• The Play Ethic: Pat Kane’s revelatory book on the power of play in ideation and business.  Sadly it’s only available digitally for Kindle or used (and pretty pricey for a physical copy since it’s so popular).

• The Dharma of Capitalism: A Guide to Mindful Decision-Making in the Business of Life: I read this book when I was studying meditation.  It’s a very interesting take on how we make decisions and how sometimes things that on the surface appear to be simple actually have greater ramifications than we had imagined.

• Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In: My friend Amy Mantis suggested this book to me after hearing good things.  My pile of books to read is stacked pretty high but I have added it to my list.  I feel those that don’t think of themselves as “business people” (engineers, musicians, etc) would do themselves a great service by reading this.

• Absolute Beginner’s Guide to C (2nd Edition): I’m taking the Harvard’s edx course on Computer Science and this is the textbook they suggested we get to follow along with the lectures.  Author Greg Perry assumes no prior knowledge and does an incredible job of making the C language very accessible.  Python and Ruby are all the rage but if you want to learn C this is the book for you.