Hey Everyone! Super thrilled to launch the Product Hunt Book Club. As Eric said, we'll start with an AMA a month, but totally open to community leadership here on what we should do. If you want to run with something, just let me know!
First book is going to be Eric Ries's Leadership Guide. On 4/7, he's going to give an exclusive excerpt to the Product Hunt community.
Excerpt, why not the whole book? First, the book's not out yet. Second, almost every book club i've been in has died from the start because people didn't read the first book. Starting slow with an excerpt will make sure we all do it and then we'll pick a book for April.
It's like in basketball when you shoot for teams and everyone wants to shoot from the 3 point line. No one makes it and you end up taking forever to pick teams. Start slow. Shoot a free throw, homie.
Of course, this isn't an excerpt club, it's a book club! So. What should we read next? Zero to One? Hard Thing about Hard Things? You tell me! Comment here or tweet me and @producthunt your suggestions.
Props to @erictwillis and @mubashariqbal for not only making the site but also being community leaders.
@eriktorenberg@erictwillis@mubashariqbal Are you thinking more recent books, or classics like *Innovator’s Dilemma* or *Crossing the Chasm*? Would be good to have a mix IMO.
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@producthunt@erictwillis@mubashariqbal@eriktorenberg The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup by Noam Wasserman is good. I first read it in 2012 but have just picked it back up for a reread.
Yes! So happy about this!
Will The Leader's Guide be out before the AMA? My suggestion would be AMA at the end of the month so we have time to read the book.
@eriktorenberg Super! I'm finishing up Founders at Work and it's awesome so I would love for that to be a pick.
While Zero to One, Hard Thing about Hard Things, etc would be fantastic, I think Product Hunt Book Club should also focus on discovery by choosing books from "off the beaten path" -- one's that are less well-known, but force us to think/learn just as much.
Anyway, this is probably the coolest book club in the history of book clubs.
@eriktorenberg will be here later to tell you more about it. Once per month, Product Hunt will host a live AMA with the author of a great book. You'll be able to interact with authors of your favorite books and get an inside view into their writing style, philosophy, etc. We’ll start with startup books and expand beyond as the Product Hunt community expands.
Awesome stuff, looking forward to this @erictwillis. Easily the fastest way I've grown my knowledge is through product book clubs and studying books from thought leaders on my own time.
Absolutely loved Lean Analytics. It goes through the whole gamut of product types, frameworks to help shape product dev, and lines in the sand on what constitutes good or bad execution. It's like a playbook.
And of course, obviously Hooked by our friends @nireyal and @rrhoover :)
@erictwillis@byosko Would love to see an AMA! I have Lean Analytics always sitting on my desk as my de facto resource and guide. Printed out the lines in the sand pages for my team to see, they're chalk full of info.
@erictwillis@marc_rosa That's awesome Marc! If you think you've got a guest blog post worth sharing about how you're using analytics in your company, send me a message (byosko@gmail.com). We're always looking to add content to the Lean Analytics blog.
@erictwillis@byosko No joke, something like this is on my to-do list for this or next weekend, would love to share with the blog.
I'll connect with you in the next few days when I have something worth sharing. Very cool stuff.
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What's the best list of books to read? I feel I've read through all books from Lean to Ben Horowitz' to Guy's 2.0... in need of a new list to crush!
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Just asking in case anyone else feels as dumb as I do ... but AMA = "Ask Me Anything"?
Please don't flame me - you did say ANYTHING ;-)
Great idea! @KikiSchirr should definitely be in this discussion. :)
I would like to hear from Nir Eyal, author of Hooked and generally amazing writer. His insights into products & psychology are priceless.
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