I recently came across a post claiming, "Why Startup Founders Should Stop Reading Business Books." While I appreciate the sentiments of choosing your reading material wisely, I strongly disagree with the belief that you should not spend time reading anything but the most narrowly focused books.  Especially for first time and young entrepreneurs, they're an essential stepping stone in knowledge growth. I'd like to highlight the reasons I believe this here and also specifically address some of the other blogger's contentions.

5 Reasons Why Startup Founders Should Read Books

1) Books are a good substitute for experience.

If you're starting a company for the first time, there's a great chance you've never done a lot of core duties to running a business; from hiring decisions, to managing people, to making deals and building momentum to building a product, there are tons of skills to develop.  

Yes, there's nothing better than the experience of actually doing.  However, I've found veterans can forget how hard it is the first time; the level of uncertainty and poor choices you make when you don't even know how to get started can often be easily avoided if you just know the right place to begin. The right books can do that.

A great example is The Art of the Start, which I just reviewed last week. It really is a startuper's Bible for everything entrepreneurial. Maybe your first time out you won't understand everything Guy Kawasaki advises in the book, but it will definitely point you in a better direction than hopelessly Googling blog posts. 

2) Some concepts do scale.

One of the core arguments of Rob's post was that too much of the advice in most business books aren't applicable to entrepreneurs.  I disagree. I think any intelligent founder will recognize the difference (or should) and work to scale down the ideas they're presented.

Yes, there are plenty of garbage business books out there that will load you up with random case studies, but even then there are often lessons to be learned.  Challenges in human relations, leadership and product decisions aren't that different from business to business.  

Just like the common advice is to "serve your customer's needs" not "blindly do what your competition does," if you're just going to copy exactly what you read in a book, you're going to fail. Instead, the key is to extract the understanding of what was happening in the business and the big picture strengths and weaknesses.  Was the turnaround because management started talking to workers on the floor or because of their awesome PowerPoint pitch?  

3) Most entrepreneurs can remember key concepts longer than a Goldfish.

Another argument made by Rob was that with "Information Overload" we're unlikely to be able to use anything we read unless we are "going to be working on in the next 1-2 months."  I'm as guilty of being an information consuming freak (I'm on Twitter regularly, read on the subway to and from work and instapaper blog posts daily), but even I of horrendous memory can still recall parts of books I previously read that resonate with me strongly.

I read Good to Great by Jim Collins 2 years ago. While parts of the book have not aged well (Fannie Mae and Circuit City most notably), some of their core concepts still resonate me. I still remember the levels of leadership and most importantly to me, the "Get on the Bus" concept (you need your team united on a vision). I will not be forgetting them anytime soon, and unlike your average blog post, I know where I can find those concepts later if I want to re-read them. 

4) Books provide an opportunity for reflection.

One of the challenges of our "information overload" society is an inability to actually stop and reflect. Unlike a blog post you may skim at work or read through during your morning or evening routine...books are consumed at a more deliberate pace.  This pacing leaves more room for deep reflection.  

This is important in order to allow your mind to organize your thoughts.  Books often tackle concepts broader and more deeply than a blog post can (unless it's a Paul Graham type of essay), which means the odds of pieces being able to apply to your startup are greater (except for those blog posts relevant to your specific industry, obviously).  

I find that when I'm reading a book, I'm constantly thinking about how it might apply to what I'm trying to do and more importantly, when I stop reading, I usually spend the next few minutes pondering what I just read, to try to find the patterns and themes I should keep in mind. This is a very healthy process that can only help your startup.

5) The right books can teach you a ton.

Just like you only spend a few minutes reading the average blog post, the average blog writer spends only an hour or two on their post.  Meanwhile, a diligent author will spend months painstakingly perfecting their book. That care can lead to some amazingly valuable books.

In the end though, the key is what books you choose to read. There are plenty of duds and fluff books out there.  Rob was totally correct in pointing out the average Malcolm Gladwell book can be summarized in a few sentences.  However, I stand behind every book reviewed on Greenhorn Connect as being essential reads for any entrepreneur.  Each of these books have delivered a great amount of content that would help any entrepreneur. Even Seth Godin's book makes the cut, simply because it is such a short read, and such an essential concept, it's worth it. 

So keep reading and just choose your books wisely! Ask people you know and respect to refer you to your next book; you're much more likely to find value in it if someone you know already has!  

Do you recommend founders read business books? What books do you recommend?

Photo Credit: Ian Wilson on Flickr