Thinking of Starting a Business? Here Are 6 Books Every Woman Should Read First ​

Ah, nonfiction.

I may not be a fan, but even I can’t deny that there’s nothing like a nonfiction book to inspire you to improve, especially if you’re very career-focused. Anyone who’s walked into a bookstore knows that there’s no shortage of self-help books to teach you how to become the next CEO, or improve your handshake grip (48 Laws of Power, I see you), nor “manipulate” your colleagues into liking you.

But what about entrepreneurship?

What do you read if you want to start a business? When you want to understand not how to be liked by your colleagues, but how to actually build systems in your business? Especially as a woman, because that adds another layer of complexity.

If you’ve been asking that same question too, and you haven’t gotten any clear, helpful answers, you’re in luck. Here are 6 books to read if you’re a woman thinking of starting a business. These books are essential for women founders, as they detail the experiences these authors have had on their entrepreneurship journeys, as well as the money lessons you need to learn now.

So without further ado, let’s get into it.

(I agree 100%.)

We Should All Be Millionaires was written by Rachel Rodgers, a former lawyer turned entrepreneur who grew up low-income but has since built her own thriving empire. In the book, she details how women have been shut out from creating wealth for centuries, and how most of the financial advice given in this day and age is absolute patriarchal nonsense. The book is a wake-up call for us women to stop playing small with money and start dreaming big. If you want to build wealth, and let’s be real, who doesn’t? Then you should definitely check out this book.

As an entrepreneur, branding can never be overrated. It’s one thing to sell products to people; it’s another to sell your brand. When you’ve properly curated your brand, it sets you miles apart from your competitors because not only are your customers buying your products, they’re also buying your identity and your values.

Author Emily Heyward is an expert on this, seeing as she’s the co-founder of Red Antler, a New York–based marketing agency for startups. Using case studies from actual brands, she breaks down what it really means for your customers to be obsessed with your brand and how to make that long-term. If you don’t just want to gain followers but actually build a community of customers that love not just your products but your brand, add this book to your TBR list.

As an aspiring business owner, it’s not difficult to guess that sales are all you think about. In this book, Sabri Suby, the founder of one of Australia’s fastest-growing digital marketing agencies, breaks down digital marketing to attract paying customers. It teaches everything from writing compelling ad copy that’ll instantly hook a prospective customer to creating and maintaining strategic partnerships and leveraging the power of the internet. Some call it the most controversial marketing book of the decade, but if you want to learn to sell your business like crazy, this is the book to check out.

We see it every day: top CEOs and leaders who are the absolute best at their jobs and sources of inspiration, but who are also the worst bosses on earth. Don’t be quick to assume it won’t be you; human resources management is hard. Imagine learning everything about branding, driving sales, and generating revenue, only to end up being a bad boss and team leader. If you don’t want to end up turning into an HR problem one day, you need to learn how to be a better boss. Luckily, Kim Scott teaches you how to be one in this book. Drawing on real-life stories from her professional experience, she introduces you to the concept of radical candor as an employer: finding a balance between caring personally and challenging your employees directly to help them grow.

As a business owner, problem-solving will be one of, if not the most, important skills you will need. A fact about business is that things will always go wrong. A shipment might go missing, there may be a delivery mix-up, something will go wrong every once in a while, and what do you do then? Do you panic, or get to solving? This is what Marie Forleo aims to teach you. As she says in the title, everything is figureoutable. No matter how bad it seems, as a leader and owner, you need to be able to figure everything out, and this book equips you with the skills to do so. With real stories and inspiring examples, she teaches you to stop treating every problem as an insurmountable roadblock, helping you build confidence in your problem-solving skills.

Starting anything is hard, and as you need to know, your mindset is 80% of the work. Sandra, a Silicon Valley startup entrepreneur, shows you just how much of this is true, detailing her own experiences and explaining how she managed to thrive using a positive mindset. In the book, she outlines 10 mindset shifts that every business owner just starting out must adopt to build the company of their dreams and grow bigger than their competitors. She approaches it primarily from a tech-focused perspective, but the lessons are simple and can be applied to any field.

So there you have it.

Starting a business is hard, especially as a woman. But the right advice can save you time, mistakes, and money, and these 6 books provide it.