I've been an entrepreneur for many years, with both successes and failures. I love it. Some of my friends who have been 9-5ers for years have asked me for recommendations on articles/blogs/books to read about taking the plunge into the startup world. Embarrassingly, I've come up blank off the top of my head, and I don't have enough time to fully vet all the stuff that pops up in Google to make sure I'm not doing them a disservice.<p>So, HN, I turn to you. Off the top of your head, what reading materials would you suggest for a typically non-tech person that is looking to jump into our world?
I would actually strongly advise against reading. Vicarious entrepreneurism is a real trap.<p>It's better to start building or selling something. If your friends have any flair for business at all, tell them to open up a Shopify store and sell something. I actually recommended this to a friend who asked me the same question your friends asked. She's got a growing online jewellery business now. And she's keyed into the startup literature when she needs it.
It depends what they're looking for: Facts, insights or opinions and news on startups. Here's a list of items which i've always liked. To be honest you can get so much just from reading Hacker News.<p><i>Books:</i><p><pre><code> Founders at Work
The Lean Startup
The Four Hour Work Week
Hackers & Painters
Getting Real - 37 Signals/Jason Fried
F'd Companies (Maybe not crucial but helped me think about startups needing to fulfill a need/fix a problem).
</code></pre>
<i>Articles:</i><p><pre><code> http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html
http://thestartupfoundry.com/
http://avc.com
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/
http://steveblank.com/
http://onstartups.com/
</code></pre>
Market (Raw startup information/links):<p><pre><code> http://betali.st/
http://angel.co
</code></pre>
Interview Specific:<p><pre><code> http://foundation.bz
http://mixergy.com
http://thisweekin.com - TWI Startups or VC are both good shows.
YC Startup School Videos (Not exactly interviews but great).
</code></pre>
<i>Startup News:</i><p><pre><code> http://thenextweb.com
http://techcrunch.com
http://readwriteweb.com
http://venturebeat.com
http://gigaom.com
</code></pre>
<i>Update:</i> YC also has a library of information here too: <a href="http://ycombinator.com/lib.html" rel="nofollow">http://ycombinator.com/lib.html</a>