Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Essential advice on building and running a startup

The Hard Thing About Hard Things" is a startup book offering practical advice on building and running a company. Written for entrepreneurs and startup founders, it addresses the challenging decisions and situations… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. The Hard Thing About Hard Things launched in 2015; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1
The Hard Thing About Hard Things▲12
Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
2
The Hard thing about Hard Things▲7
Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
3
The Startup Playbook▲548
How-to guide for building your startup from the ground up
2018 · startup-playbook.com · its alternatives →
4
The Startup Way▲507
The new book from Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup
2017 · thestartupway.com · its alternatives →
5
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When T▲1
Real life of an entrepreneur, in details.
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
6
Marketing for Startups▲565
Free e-book with 47 practical user acquisition tactics
2021 · toptal.com · its alternatives →
7
Dream Big. Hustle Hard.▲210
The millennial woman's guide to success in tech
2017 · hustlecrew.co · its alternatives →
8
Do Things That Don't Scale▲575
Discover new unscalable ways to grow your startup
2018 · dothingsthatdontscale.com · its alternatives →
9
High Output Management▲158
The bible for startup management
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
10
Innovator's Dilemma▲202
The seminal business book
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
11
Top Startup Books▲282
A collection of must-read books for startup founders.
2015 · startupbooks.top · its alternatives →
12
The Founder's Dilemmas▲75
Anticipating & Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
13
Talk To Your Fucking Customers! (If You Want To Build A Better B2B Startup)▲171
Actionable advice for B2B Startups by Steli from Close.io
2018 · close.com · its alternatives →
14
BlockShelf▲259
Cliffs Notes for startup books + resources
2014 · blockshelf.com · its alternatives →
15
Growing a Million Dollar Company▲123
30+ lessons on startup success & failure
2015 · baremetrics.com · its alternatives →
16
Zero To Founder▲222
A book to help you build profitable products
2023 · upen.gumroad.com · its alternatives →
17
Acceleration▲171
Startup law book for entrepreneurs
2019 · startuplawyer.com · its alternatives →
18
Lean Analytics▲100
Use data to build a better startup faster
2015 · leananalyticsbook.com · its alternatives →
19
It took 4 years to sell my startup. I wrote a book about it▲208
The complete book: A founder
Feb 2026 · derekyan.com · its alternatives →
20
Running Lean▲144
An exacting strategy for achieving a product/market fit
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
21
Startup Analytics▲5
Commentary on union between Startups & Analytics
2018 · vktv1.live · its alternatives →
22
Startup CEO▲64
A field guide to scaling your business
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
23
Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want▲70
Practical guide to B2B startups
2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →
24
Business Starter Kit▲139
Free must-have books and tools for business owners
2018 · visme.co · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →