130 Essential 10 Book Ideas to Read

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It will take you less than 10 minutes to get familiar with them.

Product designer Louis Tsai read 10 popular nonfiction books and, deciding that not everyone has enough time for this, chose 130 main ideas from them. These works are:

1. The Calling by Ken Robinson.
2. “Start with the question 'Why?'”, Simon Sinek.
3. The Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
4. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.
5. How to Get Things Done by David Allen.
6. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
7. “How to Work Four Hours a Week,” Timothy Ferris.
8. The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen.
9. Business from Scratch, Eric Ries.
10. “From zero to one. How to create a startup that will change the future”, Peter Thiel.

"Calling" (45 seconds)

1. Try to use every opportunity to reveal your abilities.
2. Broaden your horizons. This will help improve your skills.
3. Look for passion - things that you do not keep track of time.
4. Build your path to success instead of blindly seeking wealth or instant recognition.
5. Don't plan your life. She is unpredictable.
6. Don't feel bad about something if you didn't do it at school. Standardized tests show our ability in only one way.
7. Each person is unique for two reasons: genes and environment.
8. If you accept the impossibility of predicting the future, you will find new opportunities.
9. Positive emotions reduce stress, pain and relieve addiction.
10. Find people who are passionate about what you are.

“Start by asking 'Why?'” (45 seconds)

1. Think from the inside, not from the outside. Always start with the question "Why?"
2. Do business with people who believe in what you believe in.
3. People don't buy what you do. Your product is the result of what you believe in.
4. Satisfied customers and customers are the most valuable resource of any company.
5. Financial incentives do not motivate people emotionally.
6. Buyer manipulation can only work in the short term.
7. The "Golden Circle" consists of three layers. External - "What?", Middle - "How?" and internal - "Why?"
8. Profit is the result of answering the questions "What?" and "How?" but not "Why?"
9. The law of innovation diffusion divides buyers into 2.5% innovators, 13.5% early adopters, 34% early majority, 34% late majority, 16% lagging behind. In order to make a company successful, you need to attract 15-18% of buyers in the market.
10. The early majority won't accept a product that early adopters didn't try. Those, in turn, will not accept a product that the company does not believe in.

Purple Cow (30 seconds)

1. Take risks and don't be afraid of criticism.
2. Target an audience that enjoys trying new things and is willing to share your product with others.
3. Develop a product along with marketing.
4. Choose your marketing goals and budget effectively.
5. Don't become a leader if you can't turn risks into success.
6. Traditional advertising is no longer effective, as it is difficult for it to grab the attention of the buyer.
7. In today's oversaturated market, there is no room for the ordinary.
8. Sometimes, if you are being laughed at, this is useful, because this is also an advertisement.

Tipping Point (30 seconds)

1. To spread an idea, you need it to stick. It needs to be catchy, unique and memorable to stand out from the buzz of the market.
2. If you want effective word of mouth, your initial customer base should be small - up to 150 people.
3. Spreading an idea is like spreading an epidemic.
4. The tipping point is the time when the idea shifts from niche users to market majority.
5. Visionaries, salespeople, and evangelicals are responsible for spreading the idea.
6. The external environment strongly determines our behavior.
7. Small changes in context can have a big impact.

"How to get things in order" (60 seconds)

1. Focus. If you have an unnecessary thought in your head, create a Thought Bucket list and write it down there.
2. Empty the Thought Bucket once a week.
3. Shift unimportant tasks, complete short tasks first, and mark deadlines on your calendar or task list.
4. Divide large tasks into subtasks.
5. The task list should always be at hand.
6. The Pending List is needed for non-urgent tasks.
7. If you have a lot of paper documents, sort them into date folders.
8. Someday is a list for ideas and potential projects.
9. Create a functional workplace to control yourself.
10. Review and update task lists weekly.
11. Scheduling turns questionable ideas into brainstorming sessions.
12. Don't do multiple tasks at the same time. Focus on one task.
13. The purpose of our brain is to think. But sometimes thoughts distract from the task at hand.
14. Daily to-do lists are ineffective as they distort the perception of time.

"7 Habits of Highly Effective People" (60 seconds)

1. An effective life is a mixture of personal paradigms with universal principles.
2. Sharpen your blades constantly. The blade of the body is sports, the blade of the mind is learning new things, the emotional blade is communication.
3. Be proactive and in control of your destiny.
4. Set long-term goals, understanding your benefits from achieving them.
5. Visualize the outcome of each step. This will make it easier for you to take specific actions.
6. The priority should be those goals that move you forward.
7. Think that you will win.
8. Natural relationships involve empathy and helping others.
9. Be an active listener. Repeat to yourself what the person is telling you, and reflect the other person's emotions.
10. Connect with other people, be open and respect them. A group can achieve more than one person.
11. Don't say yes to everything.
12. Don't cheat yourself thinking that you will lose.
13. To change, you need to change character, not behavior.
14. Our paradigms are a subjective view of life. He is not always correct.
15. If you want to inspire others, you first need to be understood.

"How to work four hours a week" (100 seconds)

1. Aim high to create your own rules.
2. Take every opportunity to step out of your comfort zone.
3. Try working remotely at your current job.
4. To be more effective now, set yourself the goal of working remotely in the future.
5. The 20/80 rule also applies to work: 20% of the work brings 80% of the results.
6. Time is money. Remove things that interfere with your efficiency at work.
7. Assess the importance of the assignment by asking yourself, "If this is the only thing I will do today, will I be happy?"
8. Finish important tasks before noon.
9. Mail and calls should be dealt with after completing priority tasks.
10. You can get others to play by your rules through communication.
11. Try to outsource as many non-core tasks as possible. The point is to spend time doing what you do well.
12. Be open.
13. Delegate as much as possible.
14. Test the product before launching.
15. In your area of work, you must associate with reliability.
16. The challenge for a small company is to appear larger. People trust big companies.
17. The 20/80 Rule applies to customers as well: 20% of your customers generate 80% of your profits.
18. Even if your product is cheap, it should still be of premium quality.
19. Don't lie to yourself: being in your comfort zone is bad.
20. Don't start your day by checking your mail.
21. Life satisfaction is easier to achieve when you are open to new opportunities.
22. Moderate passive income is the key to being able to do what you want, wherever you want.
23. The worst outcome is often not as bad as it sounds.
24. Five steps to independence: full-time work, remote work, process optimization, finding a source of alternative income, leaving your previous job.

Innovator's Dilemma (60 seconds)

1. A good company should have several development strategies.
2. Observe how customers use your product.
3. Plan ahead, but change your plan based on external factors.
4. Be creative when looking for new clients.
5. Try it and be wrong - even the most successful companies make the wrong decisions.
6. Do not develop products and services based only on customer opinions.
7. Innovation is not just about quantity. It is an improvement in functionality, reliability and usability.
8. Stable and new companies bring different types of innovations to the market.
9. The goal of innovation in stable companies is to maintain market share.
10. Understanding what the customer wants is an important part of the product, but it doesn't allow for The Next Big Thing.
11. Developed companies often overlook emerging niches. This is a chance for new companies.
12. Sometimes companies lack the flexibility to manage resources, processes and values. This prevents them from adapting to changing conditions.
13. Theoretical models rarely work in the real world.
14. Disruptive innovations are often pre-existing but improved technologies.
15. For a company, the most reliable way to get an innovation is to acquire or take over another company that does it.

"Business from scratch" (60 seconds)

1. The team should be focused on finding a business model. The sooner you find it, the more likely it is to succeed.
2. Take a scientific approach, that is, always justify what you say.
3. Confirm hypotheses by talking to real customers.
4. Test hypotheses - this is the only way you can move from assumptions to facts.
5. Test the product, create a minimum run product (MVP).
6. Do separate tests for each new feature in your product. Then you will be able to appreciate what is effective and what is a waste of time.
7. Pick a growth engine (viral, addictive, or pay) and focus on that.
8. Not all business metrics are important.
9. Traditional development strategies don't apply to startups.
10. Don't be afraid of pivots - drastic changes in your business model.
11. The goal of a startup is to find an acceptable business model.
12. The essence of a minimally workable product is to get the opinion of early adopters about it.
13. The company must understand that its product should be used by as many people as possible.
14. Learn from mistakes and don't repeat them. This will help you find a workable business model faster.

Zero to One (60 seconds)

1. Think of the future as something that is bound to happen.
2. Also think about the actions that need to be taken to bring this future closer.
3. Finding an idea that other people don't think about is the key to success.
4. Aim first to be successful at what the company does, and only then think about growth.
5. The first employees must be chosen wisely. Rely not only on their skills, but also on their vision of the process, as well as their connections with each other.
6. The founder of the company must pay attention to all processes, but little by little.
7. Two types of progress link the present with the future: horizontal (from one to N) and vertical (from zero to one).
8. Vertical progress is difficult, because what you think about was not invented before you by someone else.
9. The leader must be 100% sure of what his company is doing.
10. Competition is good for the buyer, but it also drives the company's progress.
11. Vertical progress leads to a monopoly in the market.
12. Sales and distribution are important because the product will not sell itself. Apply and test different strategies.
13. The founders are strange people. However, their vision, whatever it may be, is an important part of the company they have created.