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The main obstacle that entrepreneurs who start a startup face is the fear of failure, that is why in order for you to be successful you must be persistent and fight for your idea so that your company survives.

In addition, knowledge will be one of the bases that you must keep constantly updated to improve or complement the development plans of your company. In the past, some books and essays helped me improve my business system, keep me motivated, and made me put my fears aside and always look ahead.

The most difficult thing when you want to undertake is to make the idea you have in mind come true , so the first thing you should do is analyze if there will be demand for the service or product you want to create or offer. To talk more about it and about other factors to start a business, here are some books that inspired me and helped strengthen my operating plan.

The Lean Startup method , by Eric Ries

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A startup is an organization dedicated to creating something under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This book served me a lot because when I started my company I was very young, so when I listened to the recommendations of the audiobook, I removed mental barriers and crossed the uncertainty to find the way to a sustainable business. In addition, I learned to innovate and launch my products in an agile way, which contributed to my startup being successful.

The method raises three essential aspects to consider when we start a business: hypothesis, minimum viable product and relevant metric. With the first, the objective is to define a position on what we believe will work in the market, be it product or service; the second is about the minimum we can put on the market in order to test the hypothesis, and the third is about studying the data on which we will base ourselves to review the hypothesis. The book raises other relevant terms and advice that I advise you to review.

Hooked: How to Create Products That Get People Hooked, by Ryan Hoover Nir Eyal

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It is a research, compilation and analysis of years carried out by the author to explain the psychological foundations that lie behind the success of some digital products of the leading companies in a highly competitive world. As my startup is a digital platform, this book helped me a lot to make the service I offer hook the audience and get more and more users and subscribers.

The book explains how to get people to connect with the products we offer in order to create brand loyalty, based above all on business ethics, highlighting customer satisfaction. In addition, it explains how to get a captivating product to market that people are attracted to.

The Myth of the Entrepreneur, by Michael E. Gerber

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This book helped me develop my business in an extraordinary way. He taught me that the great results of a company are based on an understanding of how it works and the insatiable need to create a world of your own. Thanks to this book I thought in a more creative, visionary and innovative way, and I understood all the parts that had to make up my business for it to grow.

In the book, its author argues that many of the failures related to entrepreneurship have to do with excessive confidence in the product, that is, many entrepreneurs believe that only by having a good product they will succeed in business, and they do not take into account that to achieve this it is necessary to always be willing to learn more, and at the same time, to have confidence in our abilities. Good ideas are the foundation of a successful business, but they will never be its only component, explains its author.

Essay “Alive by default or dead by default” from the collection “Hackers and Painters” , by Paul Graham

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Ask yourself if your startup is alive or dead, this means, if the company that has been operating for more than 8 months is profitable with the money that is left from its constant expenses and its growth in recent months. Paul Graham, author of the essay “Alive by Default or Dead by Default,” recommends that we ask this question early to avoid what he calls the “fatal pinch,” which is the default death from slow growth, plus insufficient time to fix it. This reflection helped me a lot to realize the potential that my startup had and to have a Plan B in case of not getting the investors I needed to be able to make it survive.

I recommend that you read or listen to this content so that you can improve the foundations of your startup, just as I did. Remember that your dreams and ideas are always worth fighting for, and that being willing to learn is one of the keys for your startup not only to survive, but to take off. You never know how many people’s lives could change.