Reading List

January 29, 2018

by a searcher from IE Business School in Bern, Switzerland

I am wondering which books you consider as being useful for Search Fund entrepreneurs and thought it might be great to have a reading list here.

The three books I can personally recommend (but are also widely known) are:

Will Thorndike - The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
Richard Ruback, Royce Yudkoff - HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business (HBR Guide Series)
Jonathan Byrnes - Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink: Why 40 Percent of Your Business Is Unprofitable and How to Fix It

Thanks for adding further interesting books, looking forward to reading these.

Best regards,

Ben

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Reply by a searcher
from University of Pennsylvania in Chicago, IL, USA

I would offer two that come to mind: 1. "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It." This is a great book to understand the problematic mindset of a lot of small business owners who you might be buying companies from. Great business book and written in a narrative style that makes it a page-turner. Key insight is that only well thought-out systems can scale. Sounds trite perhaps, but the number of owner/CEOs who don't get this idea continues to surprise me. Don't work "in" the business; work "on" the business. 2. "The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done." Classic Peter Drucker book. During a search, transaction or the first 100 days, there are a million things to do and it is impossible to do it all. Thus the focus of the CEO has to be on prioritization and as the title reads, getting the right things done. Written in 1967, at a time when computers were first making their way into supporting executive decision-making - everything in the book remains completely relevant. Timeless, practical wisdom for executives. My biggest takeaway was being very conscious of how I was spending my time. Ensuring alignment between what I thought was important and how I was actually filling the hours/days on the calendar.

Reply by a searcher
from Harvard University in 126 Brewster Rd, West Hartford, CT 06117, USA

Most business books I know of are about leadership in general and not especially relevant for the search process. That being said, my favorites are: Essential Peter Drucker, The Lean Startup, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Innovator's Dilemma, Moneyball, HBR article on Porter's Five Forces, Getting to Yes, and Difficult Conversations. There's a lot more out there; sometimes it's just about finding the right book at the right time that resonates with you...(I've taken a second look at some of the books on my list and they don't seem to pack the same punch anymore, but they made a difference for me at the time). If you're short on time - as we all are these days - you can read executive summaries of the top business books, digest the top HBR articles of all time, and keep up with business news to find sources of inspiration and wisdom.

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