What's The Most Insightful Book You Have Read That Completely Changed Your Thinking?

I was reading them around the team I read Zero to One.

So that helped me stay very in touch with the fundamentals and market realities.

Around that time, I also spoke to some really experienced folks and consumed a ton of online content.

Above all, as I did all this, my team and I were building, we were out there in the trenches figuring it out.

And that, in the world of startup, is the best teacher.

Other than that, Zero to One is an excellent read. Lol

....useful, as you'd now be able to apply those principles in your own reality of being a founder in Nigeria that faces so many issues.

There's lots more I could say. But that's it really.

Zero to One is a fantastic book by an incredibly smart guy. But many can fall into the trap of "reading it too soon" or imbibing the wrong things.

Did I read it to early? Lol. Maybe, but I was lucky to quickly realize that and get grounded in all the basics...

By the way, all the other books I mentioned..

...resume getting excited about all the good stuff in Zero to One

For example, say you're building something in FinTech, you'd really want to start by listening to guys like Tosin of Moniepoint, Tayo of Paga, Sola and Ezra of Paystack, Iyin and GB of Flutterwave etc...so they can tell you the harsh reality of what it takes to be in the trenches and build something successful.

When you become very grounded, all the extra "thinking finesse" and good stuff in Zero to One, then becomes very...

..10x better than everything out there, competition is for losers (because Peter Thiel said so 🤣).

There's a high chance that all this excitement will make this person skip many steps and mess things up.

While many things in the book are super useful, you're better off getting a good grasp of the realities of what it means to build a startup in Nigeria.

Talk to people, ask questions, do research ...lock in the fundamentals.

Once you've started and things are going well, you can now...

And all those other high-faluting things.

I'm not even discouraging anyone from reading it whenever they want ... the book does an excellent job of teaching you "how to think" and "thinking about things the right way"

But when it comes to it, one must be grounded in reality.

Take for example, someone who is new to all of this...and reads Zero to One.

Next thing, he's fired up, super excited, head in the clouds about how "I will be so good, I won't even compete, my product will be..

...governmental policies that can negatively (or positively) affect the success of my startup?

9. Are there folks I should go talk to before I start? Folks with a wealth of knowledge in this space etc.

10. Do we adopt a bottom-up or top-down approach to distribution and marketing?

11. Is this a bootstrappable business?

So yeah, those are a few ABCs to understand and get done before you start worrying about "I want to be 10x better, I want to be so good that I don't even compete"...

..build in?

2. What major things have happened in the past 3, 5 10 years?

3. What startups failed, which ones succeeded? And why?

4. What does the investment landscape look like?

5. What are the key socio-cultural and socio-ecomonic factors affecting the market I want to enter?

6. How do I validate key market assumptions by shipping an MVP?

7. Is this something I can build myself? Do I need to get a technical co-founder? Or do I outsource development altogether?

8. Are there governm..

I for one love the caveat. Would make sure to remember this when I finally want to go founder mode.

All of that is great! And you should aspire to be better than all other products in your space, and to deliver so much value better than everyone else that you're simply like a monopoly business...like Google in search.

However, worrying about all this before doing the basics is just getting ahead of yourself unnecessarily.

Again, you need to focus on the fundamentals and realities...

So you want to ask yourself questions like..

1. What is the history of startups in this space I want to..

...starting, before you go to the more exotic, outlier stuff.

You'd need to know about picking ideas, picking a co-founder/team, building an MVP, bootstrapping, putting together a pitch deck, pitching to investors, getting to product-market fit etc.

It's a really long list.

Now, if you're not grounded in all these basics, it's easy to pickup Zero to One and get hyped up about how "Mehnnn, I want to be 10x better than any other product" or "I want to be so much better than I don't comepte"

So while the book espouses a lot of outlier, radical, contrarian thinking, if you read it too soon, before you get grounded in the harsh realities of building a startup in your country...

...you might lose touch with reality.

So I'd suggest that young, first-time founders and builders read books like Guy Kawasaki's the Art of the Start, Eric Reis' Lean Startup, The Business Model Generation by Alexander & Yves ..first, before they jump to Zero to One.

You need the basics, the 101's of..

Again, these are not false or untrue, but they're not just radical ideas, but in reality, they're "outlier ideas", that is, there are only a hand full of founders and startups that will ever achieve these things.

Reality is way less radical or exciting as that.

There'll always be competition, it's super hard to build a true monopoly, most successful startups will have a lot of competition, howbeit with a clear competitive advantage/USP.

Reality is more..."the rule" than "the exception".

....at least 10x better than the competition etc.

None of those things are wrong, ideally they are things we should aspire to, if we can.

But it's important for folks just starting out to be more grounded in many realities and understand the ABC's of building and founding.

There are many, tons of basics you need to know and be well versed in before you even start thinking about contrarianism, monopoly businesses, and being 10x better, and the notion that "competition is for losers"....

Zero to One is an amazing book, by a brilliant ex-tech founder and current billionaire investor, but one has to be very careful when reading it.

For young, largely inexperienced, first time builders, founders etc...it's easy to read Zero to One and start...."Living in the clouds", and all you want to do is build that product that nobody is building, or only start a monopoly company because those are the only companies worth starting a la Peter Thiel, and you're obsessed about products that...

...questions like "is there something that should exist in the world that nobody is building?"...or "what is one thing that I know /believe to be true that nobody agrees with me on?" etc.

So yeah, that trait where you can boldy, defiantly go against the norm and do something, build a product that you believe should exist but nobody else is building or thinks should be built.

So right now, I'd say that's probably my cardinal take way from reading Zero to One...

However...a few warnings...

I mean, Zero to One is riddled with gems, but it's almost ten years since I read it, so I'm not sure if I can remember all the amazing things Peter Thiel packed into the book.

But, for what I can remember, I'd say the thing that resonated and still resonates with me till today is Contrarian Thinking...the need for more contrarian thinking in the world, particularly when building companies, products etc.

So essentially, being able to go against the norm and general direction of things and ask..

Kind of book a founder should be reading, Would you mind sharing one key take away that really resonates with you, and you feel society should know this?