I would recommend "Start Small, Stay Small." It was very useful for me when I starter a side business that two years later has billings in the range of $175,000/year in licenses. In my case, it is subscription-only offline software.
i have recently read 'the e myth' which i would definitely recommend especially for the business/finance/planning side of things<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/...</a>
If you are aiming for more than a lifestyle business, read The Curse of the Mogul [1][2]. It's a graduate level course in formal business strategy disguised as a fun and easily readable analysis of why the media industry is so broken. The author is a Columbia business school professor who specializes in business strategy. The book won't help you get your first customers but it will help you design a business that can stay on top once it gains that traction.<p>[1] <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Curse_of_the_Mogul.html?id=JsdbJYu_TC8C&hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Curse_of_the_Mogul....</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703298004574457090880784448" rel="nofollow">http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487032980045744570...</a>
What specific areas are you looking to cover? Ryan Holiday is really great for covering marketing and I really like Alexander Osterwalder for building a suitable business model - the business model canvas really gets you to think about all the processes within your organization.<p>I've pulled together a spreadsheet of some of the best business books available here (warning: there's over 380 on the list): <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cjhp55VHRWyNjjQca2Wg0HrfAGUwjORmk_DZt3jdmNI/edit?pli=1#gid=0" rel="nofollow">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cjhp55VHRWyNjjQca2Wg...</a>
- The Growth Hackers book
- The books from Steve Blank
- The Art of Profitability
- The Checklist Manifesto
- iCon - The Second Greatest Act in Business
- The Narrow Road
- A good book on Copywriting
- The Mythical Man-Month
- Peopleware
- No Silver Bullet
- Death March by Edward Yourdon
- A Random Walk down Wall Street<p>And a whole bunch more - <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/9837702-hrishikesh-choudhari?shelf=to-read" rel="nofollow">https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/9837702-hrishikesh-cho...</a>
Full disclosure, this is my project.<p><a href="https://monthlyreadersclub.cratejoy.com/subscribe/72545612_business-education-courses?gift=False" rel="nofollow">https://monthlyreadersclub.cratejoy.com/subscribe/72545612_b...</a><p>We send out a book each month that matches the course you sign up for. The goal is to help people read more, but I also believe reading is one of the best ways to develop the soft skills needed in business. One book a month, every month, is compounding interest for your brain.
I'd recommend checking out Joel Spolsky's Reading List: <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum...</a> You might want to start with Guy Kawasaki's "Art of the Start" and Josh Kaufman's very useful "The Personal MBA"
<a href="http://www.sideprojectbook.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sideprojectbook.com/</a> This is an ebook I put together where I interviewed 39 entrepreneurs who had built a successful side business without leaving their full time gigs.
Well, I wrote a book on how to monetize and price software products... <a href="http://taprun.com/pricing" rel="nofollow">http://taprun.com/pricing</a>