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YouTube Transcript: English (auto-generated)
00:00
hey i’m going to show you the top seven
00:01
books that every startup founder has to
00:04
read right now
00:05
[Music]
00:11
hey my name is russell brunson and this
00:13
is the very first in a video series for
00:15
our new entrepreneur funnel hacker book
00:17
club every once in a while i’m gonna be
00:18
bringing you guys out brand new videos
00:20
going over some of my favorite books and
00:22
today i’m gonna go over the top seven
00:23
books for startup founders now those who
00:25
don’t know me i am a founder of a
00:27
startup called click funnels we’ve grown
00:29
dramatically over the last seven years
00:31
uh from zero to over 100 million dollars
00:32
in sales and people always ask me what
00:34
books did you read along the way to help
00:36
you to grow this company and so that’s
00:38
what we talked about today is the top
00:39
seven books for you if you are startup
00:41
founder you’re trying to launch a new
00:42
software company a new supplement or a
00:43
new product whatever it is these are the
00:45
books i’d recommend you read first
00:47
you probably heard that most startups
00:48
fail and the reason why is not because
00:50
the entrepreneurs aren’t passionate
00:52
because they don’t have the insight or
00:53
the knowledge to actually execute what
00:54
they’re trying to do and that’s why
00:56
these books are so important because it
00:57
takes your passion gives you some
00:59
knowledge and gives you the tools to
01:00
actually execute on your vision now
01:02
obviously you can learn stuff in school
01:04
and you can learn ton of stuff like real
01:05
world application out there doing the
01:07
thing but books are special books are
01:09
like a shortcut uh tony robbins to talk
01:12
about it’s like taking a decade of an
01:14
author’s life and compressing it down
01:15
into a day and so you get this ability
01:17
to really shortcut your success by
01:19
finding a book learning from someone
01:20
who’s already done it shortcutting your
01:21
success and compressing decades into
01:23
days
01:24
all right now the very first book you
01:25
should read is my book traffic secrets
01:27
just kidding you totally should read
01:28
that but today’s first book is called
01:30
remote now remote is written by the
01:32
founders of base camp the reason why
01:34
this book is so important because right
01:36
now we’re in economy we’re in an age
01:38
where everybody has to work remote now
01:40
we read this book here uh right when we
01:42
launched click funnels and we were about
01:43
to get everybody to move to boise and
01:45
get a big huge office then this book
01:46
came out we read it and we decided you
01:48
know what let’s not work in a huge
01:50
office let’s let people work from home
01:51
and right now clickfunnels has over 400
01:53
employees working from home and when the
01:55
covet hit and everyone had to break up
01:56
things never had to go remote it didn’t
01:58
slow us down even a little bit because
01:59
we already have these principles so for
02:01
today if you’re trying to build a
02:02
company this is how you start you don’t
02:04
start by taking on money and buying a
02:06
building you start by going remote it’s
02:08
cheaper it’s faster and it’s an easier
02:09
way to get your startup off the ground
02:11
and this is the blueprint to show you
02:12
how to do that what’s crazy when we read
02:14
this we didn’t realize how important
02:16
this thing was going to be seven years
02:17
later when everything hit the fan what’s
02:19
crazy this book came out in 2013. before
02:22
zoom was cool before zoom was even a
02:23
company and for crying out loud they
02:25
gave you the the book it’s called remote
02:28
office not required and after you read
02:29
this you’d be like man actually having
02:31
an office is going to hurt our
02:32
productivity we get less done so that’s
02:33
why this is so timely and so important
02:35
for you guys because it literally is a
02:36
blueprint to show you how to work remote
02:38
with amazing teams and still get stuff
02:40
done that’s how basecamp grew as big as
02:42
they have that’s how clickfunnels has
02:43
grown as well now one of my favorite
02:44
quotes from the book remote is the
02:47
ability to be alone with your thoughts
02:48
is in fact one of the key advantages of
02:50
working remotely when you work on your
02:52
own far away from the buzzing swarm at
02:54
headquarters you can settle into your
02:55
own productive zone you can actually get
02:57
work done the same work you couldn’t get
02:59
done at work yes
03:01
so if you’re thinking about a startup
03:03
and you want to work remote because you
03:05
kind of legally have to right now get
03:07
this book it’s the first one to read
03:09
it’ll show you exactly how to do it
03:10
it’ll save you a ton of money and a ton
03:11
of time
03:13
all right book number two is called shoe
03:15
dog by phil knight i’ve got here on my
03:16
phone because i listened to the
03:17
audiobook of this one because such a
03:19
great story now most people don’t think
03:21
about nike as a startup but there was a
03:23
time when it was and phil knight when he
03:24
wrote this book each of the chapters is
03:26
titled the year like 1973 1974 1975 and
03:30
so on and so forth some of my favorite
03:31
things about this book is um you had a
03:33
chance to see an empire built from the
03:35
ground up step by step by step um you
03:37
watched him as he took these crazy risks
03:39
where he’s literally flying to china and
03:40
tokyo all these places try to get shoes
03:43
back before the internet before things
03:44
were happening where all the
03:45
correspondence happened through mail and
03:47
you’re wiring you know money and not
03:49
being able to hear back from them for
03:50
three or four weeks so they you know
03:51
sent you a letter back and just all the
03:53
craziness he had to go through to create
03:54
a company back before entrepreneurship
03:56
was cool before it was easy and it was
03:58
super inspiring to hear his story it
04:00
gave me faith and hope in what’s
04:01
possible for me when you see what was
04:03
possible for him on top of that there
04:05
are some really cool lessons here uh
04:06
that i learned personally um about my
04:08
family
04:09
one of phil knight’s sons actually
04:12
hated nike so bad that he refused to
04:14
wear nike shoes and in the in the book
04:17
his son uh actually ends up passing away
04:19
and he said that one of his biggest
04:20
regrets in life is that he never learned
04:22
uh how to figure out the puzzle of his
04:23
of his son for me at the time of me
04:26
reading this i was really struggling and
04:27
still am i’m completely honest with one
04:28
of my teenagers and uh it really gave me
04:31
motivation to to to step back say look i
04:33
can build a company that does billions
04:34
of dollars in sales but if his biggest
04:36
regret was figuring out um the puzzle of
04:38
the sudden and what’s my regret gonna be
04:40
and it made me really want to spend more
04:41
time trying to figure out my kids and
04:42
help serve them in a way that helps them
04:44
because you have no idea how long
04:46
they’re going to be here for and so that
04:47
was one of my biggest takeaways and
04:48
lessons from the book shoe dog when i
04:50
first read the book i didn’t know what
04:51
the title shoe dog meant and a shoe dog
04:53
is somebody who’s obsessed with shoes
04:55
they’re obsessed with how they work how
04:56
they feel how they look like all those
04:58
type of things and so when phil that was
05:00
creating this like he became obsessed he
05:01
worked with people who was obsessed his
05:03
coach his track coach was obsessed he
05:05
literally cut the shoes apart and
05:06
reselled them together and all sorts of
05:08
crazy things he was the one who like
05:09
went and poured the the rubber into the
05:11
waffle iron that created the first uh
05:13
souls for the nike airs and just crazy
05:15
things like that and so i’m always
05:17
looking just like phil knight was
05:18
looking for people obsessed with shoes
05:19
you know in my world i’ve been looking
05:20
people who are obsessed with funnels we
05:22
call my funnel dogs or something but for
05:24
your business like who are the people
05:25
that are obsessed with with the products
05:27
and services that you sell find those
05:29
people and get proximity to them one of
05:30
my favorite quotes in this book is when
05:32
phil knight said i tell men and women in
05:34
their mid-20s not to settle for a job or
05:36
profession or even a career seek a
05:38
calling even if you don’t know what that
05:40
means seek it if you’re following your
05:42
calling the fatigue will be easier to
05:44
bear the disappointments will be the
05:45
fuel and the highs will be like nothing
05:47
you’ve ever felt
05:48
so you want to think big for your
05:49
startup and see a vision of what the
05:50
future could look like get shoot out all
05:52
right book number three is called lost
05:54
and founder by rand fishkin this
05:57
honestly is one of my favorite books of
05:59
all time rand was the founder of moz.com
06:02
he tells the story in here about
06:04
everything he went through when he was
06:05
when he was creating moth and he took on
06:07
money and what that looked like and how
06:09
having a venture back company how it
06:11
spiraled him into depression and a whole
06:12
bunch of problems and things like that
06:14
now this book is near and dear to my
06:15
heart because when we launched click
06:16
funnels we were in about a year and a
06:18
half two years and we’re thinking about
06:19
taking on money everyone kept telling us
06:21
go raise money talk to the vcs talk to
06:22
the private equity companies we were
06:24
going to and rand actually came to boise
06:26
and gave a presentation to a small group
06:27
about a hundred entrepreneurs and i had
06:29
a chance to hear them tell the story
06:30
about how they raise funds how they how
06:32
they grew their company and then
06:33
afterwards i had a chance to pull him
06:34
aside and ask him uh how it was and he
06:37
told me the truth he told me how hard it
06:38
was how you know what he actually made
06:40
as a as an owner of this company um the
06:42
depression he went through all sorts of
06:44
things because he told me that in in
06:46
person we decided not to take on money
06:48
and we haven’t ever since then and later
06:50
this book came out we actually told the
06:51
entire story of how it worked how he
06:53
grew the company and why he would never
06:54
have done it again and so for anyone
06:56
who’s in that phase where you’re trying
06:57
to bootstrap something you’re trying to
06:58
grow and you’re like should i take on
06:59
money should i not take on money this
07:01
book right here will show you the
07:03
perspective of what happens if you do
07:04
decide to take on that money what that
07:06
looks like how to prepare yourself and i
07:08
think more importantly on the flip side
07:10
hopefully like me it’ll convince you you
07:12
should try to focus on bootstrapping
07:13
your company because it’s a better way
07:14
to control the company keep it your own
07:16
anyway this book was just so powerful
07:18
for me and i hope you have a chance to
07:20
read it as well one of my favorite
07:22
quotes from this book
07:23
is short and sweet it’s the great
07:24
founders don’t do what they love they
07:26
enable a vision book number four is
07:29
behind the cloud by mark benioff now who
07:31
is mark benioff he is the founder of a
07:33
little company you may have heard of
07:34
called salesforce they built this
07:36
company into like a 20 billion year
07:38
company it is insane and behind the
07:40
clouds is actually the playbook that
07:42
mark created showing how they launched
07:45
salesforce i always look at salesforce
07:46
as this huge software company but when
07:48
they started they were the first people
07:50
ever to do software as a service
07:51
platform they were disrupting an entire
07:53
industry this book is literally written
07:55
like a playbook like as if this is your
07:57
football playbook was like play number
07:58
one we did this play number two play
08:00
number three some of these plays are
08:01
crazy it wasn’t like they went and
08:03
bought ads on facebook it was like they
08:04
found their competitors events and they
08:06
went and found all the taxis in the town
08:08
and they hired the taxi drivers to wear
08:11
salesforce clothes and signs and all
08:13
sorts of crazy things and they picketed
08:14
it outside of um outside their
08:16
competitors events and all sorts of
08:17
crazy things they did to get the message
08:19
out about their product and their
08:20
service initially i remember reading
08:22
this i felt like mark benioff was cut
08:24
from the same cloth as me this playbook
08:26
that i grew salesforce was exciting for
08:27
me and especially look at it now as you
08:29
know somebody’s built one of the biggest
08:30
companies in the world to look back at
08:32
what they did when they first started
08:33
when they’re grass roots in it and this
08:35
book will give you tons and tons of
08:37
plays that you can use to execute and to
08:39
grow your startup as well one of my
08:40
favorite quotes from behind the cloud
08:42
mark betty off said seize the
08:44
opportunity in front of you imagine
08:46
invent disrupt do good i know that you
08:49
must be passionate unreasonable and a
08:50
little bit crazy to follow your own
08:52
ideas and to do things differently but
08:54
it’s worth it life grows relative to
08:56
one’s investment in it
08:57
all right book number five i’m a little
08:59
bit nervous to share this with you
09:00
called crossing the chasm now this is
09:03
the actual book if you read it it’s
09:05
really deep i couldn’t understand about
09:07
a third of the words in the book but the
09:09
good news is is there’s a cliff note
09:11
version that i also got on my phone
09:12
called crossing the chasm book summary
09:14
and this one is amazing now crossing the
09:17
chasm as you start growing your company
09:18
there’s many different phases you take
09:20
somebody through right initially it’s
09:21
going to be your early adopters are
09:22
going to come and find out about your
09:23
product and then the innovators are
09:25
going to come in and then there’s this
09:26
chasm like how do you get from the
09:28
people who are excited about your
09:29
product your service to get it into the
09:30
hands of everybody in the world and that
09:32
chasm is one of the hardest things to
09:34
actually step through and get to on the
09:36
other side and so what i want to
09:38
recommend this book is because as you’re
09:39
building your company what you
09:40
understand the first focus is getting
09:42
the innovators and the early adopters
09:43
and getting those people into your
09:44
product or service and then you have to
09:46
transition your marketing your product
09:48
or service to be able to cross the chasm
09:50
if you can do that that’s when your
09:51
business goes from hundreds of millions
09:53
of dollars in sales to billions of
09:54
dollars in sales and so understanding
09:56
that uh when you’re when you’re building
09:58
your startup will help you to know where
09:59
you’re going and the vision the mission
10:01
of your company and so i recommend
10:02
getting crossing the chasm get the cliff
10:04
note version because it’s so much easier
10:06
to understand but this book is amazing
10:08
as well one of the reasons why this book
10:09
has been so useful for click funnels
10:11
right now is that we’ve gone through
10:12
those first two phases of growth and
10:14
over the last 12 months or so the big
10:16
question we’re asking is how do we cross
10:17
the chasm we got the early innovators we
10:19
got the early adopters we got those
10:21
people how do we cross the chasm how do
10:22
we have to shift our marketing how do we
10:23
shift our business how do we shift the
10:25
actual software in the product and so
10:27
it’s come down to us redesigning our
10:28
entire business now that we’re trying to
10:30
make that leap how do we have read this
10:32
book prior to that we probably made some
10:33
different decisions earlier on that we
10:35
made this transition easier so if you’re
10:37
just getting started it’s important
10:38
because it can help you see those things
10:39
and if you’ve already grown now your
10:41
point where you’re trying to cross the
10:42
chasm this book will give you the
10:43
blueprint and the game plan to do that
10:44
one of my favorite quotes from here is
10:47
to get an early market started it
10:48
requires an entrepreneurial company with
10:50
a breakthrough technology product that
10:52
enables a new and compelling application
10:54
a technology enthusiast who can evaluate
10:56
and appreciate the superiority of a
10:57
product over current alternatives and a
10:59
whale healed visionary who can foresee
11:01
an order of magnitude improvement from
11:03
implementing the new application now
11:05
real quick guys that was actually one of
11:06
the simpler quotes okay that was a
11:08
mouthful right that’s how most the book
11:10
is but if you think about it you read it
11:11
a few times it is actually pretty
11:13
amazing book number six and this is
11:15
probably an unlikely one for most of you
11:16
guys who are starting businesses book
11:18
number six is extreme ownership now this
11:21
one is so important on so many levels
11:23
for you or for me as the leader as the
11:25
entrepreneur if you don’t understand
11:27
this principle and you blame your team
11:28
or blame other people you are going to
11:30
struggle you have to learn how to take
11:31
extreme ownership of everything that’s
11:33
happening inside your company on top of
11:35
that you need to teach your management
11:36
team your leaders your managers this
11:38
exact same philosophy in fact i believe
11:40
in this so much not only did i buy this
11:41
book for myself i bought it for my
11:43
entire company we took it we shipped it
11:45
to everyone said everyone needs to read
11:46
this book this is part of your job it’s
11:48
one hour a day until you finish it
11:49
you’ve got to be reading this book
11:50
because we need everybody at every
11:52
single level inside of our company
11:53
taking extreme ownership on everything
11:55
that they do if they do that you will be
11:57
amazed at how your company will blossom
11:58
and it’ll flourish but it starts with
12:00
you as the entrepreneur leading this
12:02
charge taking extreme ownership the
12:03
problems are your fault the good things
12:05
are your fault like everything is your
12:06
fault when you understand that and you
12:08
believe it you realize if there’s a
12:09
problem it’s not that my team sucks or
12:11
my person it’s always you you are the
12:13
problem take extreme ownership when you
12:15
do that it gives you the ability to
12:16
actually change things and shift things
12:18
and make them better this book was one
12:20
of my favorite books not just from a
12:21
business standpoint but personal
12:22
development as well and it’s one that’s
12:24
going to help you to grow your company
12:25
to grow yourself and to change the world
12:27
even faster when we shipped this out to
12:29
everybody we had 300 employees at the
12:30
time we spent 8 000
12:32
getting this message out to our team
12:34
that’s how valuable and how important it
12:35
was to us and how valuable and important
12:36
it should be to you as well one of my
12:38
favorite quotes from uh from this book
12:40
is
12:41
the test is not a complex one when the
12:43
alarm goes off do you get out of bed or
12:45
do you lie there in comfort and fall
12:46
back asleep if you have the discipline
12:48
to get out of bed then you win you pass
12:50
the test if you’re mentally weak for
12:52
that moment you let the weakness keep
12:54
you in bed then you fail though it seems
12:56
small these weaknesses translate to more
12:57
significant decisions but if you
12:59
exercise discipline that too translates
13:01
to more substantial elements of your
13:03
life
13:04
and the last book number seven in this
13:06
series
13:07
is a book called blue ocean strategy one
13:10
of the problems that most businesses
13:12
have is that they get into a market and
13:13
they become a me too okay in this book
13:15
it talks about there’s a blue ocean
13:17
which means that you’re out there
13:18
fishing there’s nobody else around right
13:20
and then there’s a red ocean the red
13:21
ocean means there’s a whole bunch of
13:22
people all fighting over the same fish
13:24
right and the waters are bloody because
13:26
there’s so many people all competing
13:27
here now most businesses go and they
13:28
find where’s the red ocean where’s
13:30
everybody competing where can i jump in
13:31
and that’s how they do it and the
13:33
problem is that you’re fighting amongst
13:34
the scraps with everybody else the power
13:37
when you create a new company is
13:38
creating a is finding a blue ocean or
13:39
creating a blue ocean where you’re the
13:40
only one fishing that ocean we launched
13:42
click funnels we were the only funnel
13:44
building software there was on the
13:45
planet that’s made it so simple for us
13:46
to go out and get market share quickly
13:48
how do we come and launch as an
13:49
autoresponder company or a payments
13:51
company or um a crm or marketing
13:53
automation there are tons of people in
13:55
all those spaces but nobody was in the
13:57
sales funnel market so we were the very
13:59
first we walked into blue ocean and it
14:01
gave us the ability for years to get in
14:03
there to grow our company before anybody
14:05
else came and tried to fish out of our
14:06
waters that’s the power of really
14:08
understanding this blue ocean strategy
14:10
it makes growing your company so much
14:11
simpler in the very beginning and gives
14:13
you more ability to grow and scale over
14:14
time as well
14:15
one of my favorite quotes from blue
14:17
ocean strategy is blue ocean shift is a
14:20
systematic process to move your
14:22
organization from cutthroat markets with
14:24
bloody competition what we think of as
14:26
red oceans full of sharks to wide open
14:28
blue oceans or new markets devoid of
14:30
competition in a way that brings your
14:32
people along
14:34
so there you go there are my top seven
14:35
books for startup founders how many guys
14:37
would like these books and i can throw
14:39
in my book as well as traffic secrets
14:40
that means like these eight books
14:42
actually shipped to your house i’m not
14:44
counting my phone i’ll get the physical
14:45
version i can send you my phone but if
14:47
you would like these this we’re gonna do
14:48
we’re gonna do a contest in the
14:50
description down below there’s a link
14:51
where you can enter the contest it’s
14:52
gonna show exactly what to do and one
14:54
lucky winner is gonna get all of these
14:56
books get a comment you gotta like you
14:57
subscribe do all the things but then
14:59
click on the description and join the
15:00
contest and you may be the lucky person
15:02
who’s gonna get a copy of all these
15:04
books and in fact on top of that
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