Your ultimate SaaS reading list

With a whole plethora of knowledge literally at our fingertips nowadays, you might ask:

What’s the real value of purchasing books for business knowledge? 🤔

Well, we think it provides a crucial opportunity to disengage from the screen, unwind a little, and upskill in a relaxed environment.

So pour yourself your favorite beverage, find a comfy spot on the sofa…. Recline and recalibrate with these top SaaS books. ☕

1. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal

The author’s core mission behind writing this book: make a handbook for start-up founders—a guide to show them how it's done when you're just starting out. It's the kind of book every newbie craves. Every startup founder wants – above all else – to create a product that really hooks its claws into the psyche of potential customers.

Whether your expertise is in product, marketing, design, or software development, every aspiring SaaS professional is just itching to know how to create a product that becomes a permanent fixture in a customer’s life. This book might just scratch that itch.

You might think that a lot of SaaS books are too fixated on useless theory, but this book is dedicated to providing you with actionable advice and strategies that aim to transform your key business practices in a way that drives positive outcomes. Soak up these insights in the comfort of your home, and witness the tangible results in your place of work.

2. SaaS Sales For Startup Founders by Steli Efti

A massive pain point for SaaS startup founders: How do you turn free-trial customers into paying customers? It’s not enough just to have a great idea; you gotta have a great sales pitch.

Luckily, Steli Efti’s book comes with a whole plethora of pitch examples and case studies so that you can get first-hand insight on how to effectively turn your users into buyers.

Although the advice in this book aims to get you to a pro-level of expertise, it's designed to be accessible to novices in the sales game that means minimal jargon, with concrete examples and templates for sales techniques.

4. Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff

If you want to learn how to blaze a trail through the SaaS landscape, it’s important that you follow the example of the world-beating brands that came before. Sure, the SaaS world is rapidly evolving – and that’s what we love about it.

But there are still some pretty tried and true principles that we can all live by. And what better place to look for that than in Marc Benioff’s definitive account of growing an idea into a $50 bn cloud business.

But this is no ego trip. This book zooms in closely on the exact strategies that allowed Benioff's business to hit SaaS superstardom in a relatively short space of time so that you can integrate them into your own strategy.

5. Kicking SaaS: 101 Founders on What it Takes to Launch a Software as a Service By Kelsey Yarnell

When it comes to launching a SaaS product, no two paths are ever going to be the same. We all come from different backgrounds and disciplines, and that’s part of what makes the SaaS industry so fun! So when you’re looking to find the approach that suits you, it helps to draw insight from many different sources.

Well, this essential resource does just that, providing insights from SaaS founders across multiple different areas of expertise. And this is not just self-aggrandizement, we’re honing in on the mistakes and pitfalls that SaaS experts have faced along the way.

As an aspiring SaaS leader, you’re sure to face hurdles, but with this compilation, you’ll come armed in advance with a solution for clearing them.

6. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore

Now in its third edition, this book aims to swiftly close the gap between early adopters and late majority customers. It’s no secret: in order to become profitable, SaaS companies need to be looking to scale quickly. You don’t want your product to be a hidden gem or a best-kept secret.

But scaling quickly is no easy feat and there are many who overlook essential steps to growing a viable business in a relentless effort to scale. But this book puts those failures under the microscope so that you can determine exactly what you need to do to ensure that your product is the brand on everyone’s lips in no time at all.

Geoffrey A. Moore’s seminal work was included in Inc Magazine’s top ten marketing books of all time, as well as being a Business Week bestseller.

7. Mastering the Product Experience: How to Deliver a Personalized Experience with a Product-led Strategy by Alon, Pono and Bonofiglio

In this age of SaaS revolution, the power is well and truly in the hands of the customers to be extremely selective in terms of the products for their tech stack. As such, the pressure to make customers feel valued is greater than ever.

Many customers will prefer to experience the value of your product first-hand rather than take your word for it. With a product-led experience, the value of your product alone should be self-evident, and customers will be able to see for themselves how your solution is going to positively impact their lives.

With over 12 years experience building and growing SaaS organizations, Mickey Alon is certainly over-qualified to demonstrate how this is possible. Check it out for yourself.

8. Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters by Richard Rumelt

As well as being an Emeritus professor at UCLA and a graduate of Harvard business school, Richard Rumelt, is a distinguished authority when it comes to business strategy.

Many SaaS companies have great products, but unless your go-to-market strategy is up to standard, your product can very easily get lost in the noise of a busy market.

Position your product for success. Give your product the go-to-market strategy it deserves today.

9. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Do you find that traditional advice on marketing doesn't take into account the modern cultural landscape?

In an age of idle screen-scrolling, many consumers have become desensitized to sales pitches and marketing speak, and organizations that are seeking to grab their attention will often find themselves in an uphill battle, especially due to the sheer volume of competition, given the platform that social media provides to innumerable companies.

The good news is there are still ways to break down those barriers. And this book, written by Al Ries, the coiner of the term ‘positioning,’ aims to help you achieve that thing that all modern marketers should aspire to: remaining competitive in the modern business landscape.

10. Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Ramadan, Paterson, Lochhead and Maney

What do Uber, Amazon, Ikea, and Salesforce all have in common? Two things. Firstly, they’ve all absolutely crushed it in their respective industries, and secondly, their success stories are all featured in this essential resource.

Want to be able to hang with the biggest heavyweights in the game? Well, first, you need a blow-by-blow account of how they dominated the market, so you can beat your competitors to the punch.

11. The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures by Erin Meyer

Whether you're currently working from your bedroom at home or a boardroom abroad, business success in our increasingly  globalized world requires the skills to navigate thoughtfully through cultural differences.

In The Culture Map, Erin Meyer provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business.

This book combines smart, analytical frameworks with practical, actionable advice which can be utilized by CEOs, marketers, and sales representatives alike.

12. The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton M. Christensen

What kind of business book listicle would this be if it didn’t include this seminal classic.?

Cited by the world’s most renowned thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell, innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen has written the definitive guide on disruption innovation.

Featuring the success and failures of leading companies as a guide, Christensen proves that no matter the industry or how successful your business is, established products will be pushed aside if leaders can’t and won’t abandon traditional business practices.

Forbes named him “...one of the most influential business theorists of the last fifty years.” and who are we to argue with that?

13. How to Castrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business by Dave Hitz

One of the more off-the-wall titles in the list, How to Castrate a Bull is full of colorful anecdotes about how powerful business lessons often come from strange and unexpected places.

Before he was the Founder of NetApp, a data storage firm currently raking in $4 billion a year, Dave Hitz was a cowboy, and it’s this transition from high school dropout, to cowboy, to Silicon Valley icon that makes this book so wildly entertaining. Dave looks to the future by deconstructing the past, with humor and incredible business insight.

14. The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horrowitz

Based on his popular blog, ben’s blog’, Horrowitz, offers essential (and astonishingly honest) advice on building and running a startup, using his personal experience as the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz.

A lifelong rap fanatic, Horowitz weaves business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, addressing diverse topics from firing friends to poaching the competition.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a funny and insightful guide to dealing with the tougher aspects of starting and scaling a business.

15. Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue  by Mehta,  Steinman, and Murphy

Whether this is your first step into a recurring revenue business model or you need to revamp your SaaS company into the big leagues, this game-changing book gives you the understanding and tools you're looking for, including:

• The Ten Laws of Customer Success, including real-world examples, and customized information for different business needs
• How cloud technology has redefined customer success and what a customer-centric company needs to do to maintain a competitive edge
• An in-depth look at the critical technology required for outstanding customer success
• Easy-to-understand approaches to capturing the sophisticated metrics that drive prosperous customer-centric programs

Practical, insightful, and comes highly recommended by Jim Steele, President and Chief Customer Officer of Salesforce.

16. Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday

Growth Hacker Marketing is a digestible explanation of this new, disruptive marketing phenomenon while offering real strategies and actionable tactics for engineers, marketers, ad execs,entrepreneurs and everyone in between.

A fantastic primer for anyone looking to get to grips with growth hacking.

17. From Impossible to Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross & Jason Lemkin

From Impossible to Inevitable distills the seven ingredients of hypergrowth into actionable goals, with a matter-of-fact, no-nonsense approach to growing revenue.

The template outlined in the book has been used successfully by the likes of salesforce.com, Twilio, Hubspot, Marketo, and Zuora. Whether you run a multi-million-dollar company or a small start-up, there’s lessons for fast growth to benefit everyone.

18. The SaaS Sales Method: Sales as a Science - Jacco Van Der Kooij, Fernando Pizarro, Winning by Design, Dominique Levin

A must-read for sales leaders in SaaS. Practical, to the point, and actionable.

Unpack the sales process, learn how to implement a sales system mapped to the buyer's journey, and build a predictable and scalable sales engine.

Thanks to its visual aids and straightforward advice, the SaaS Sales Method makes the science behind sales simple.

19. Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley

Everybody Writes explains how to attract and retain customers using great content.

Marketing veteran, Anne Handley’s theory is that inside all of us is a great writer because let’s face it: in a world driven by content, we’re all writers - in one way or another, and Everybody Writes offers expert guidance and insight into the process and strategy of content creation, production, and publishing, with actionable how-to advice designed to get results across web pages, home pages, landing pages, blogs, email, marketing offers, and all forms of social media.

This is the go-to guide for anyone creating or publishing any kind of online content — whether you're a big brand, small startup, or flying solo.  

20. The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn if Your Business is a Good Idea When Everyone is Lying to You by Rob Fitzpatrick

Rob Fitzpatrick writes from experience. Originally a programmer who was far more comfortable behind a screen than in a meeting, he was forced into figuring out enterprise sales at his first startup, where he learned that it's not as straightforward as the business books tend to claim.

Expect actionable, unpretentious advice, practical methods, and tons of examples.

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