Business · Similar reads

Books like The Cold Start Problem

The best books like The Cold Start Problem are Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, and The Lean Startup. The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen is about network effects, growth, product strategy. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.

  1. Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies
    Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

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    Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

    Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh · Business

    Blitzscaling is Reid Hoffman's argument that certain markets — primarily those with strong network effects and winner-take-most dynamics — reward companies that prioritize speed of growth over efficiency, even at the cost of significant operational risk.

    Shares network effects and growth with The Cold Start Problem.

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  2. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
    Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

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    Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

    Nir Eyal · Business

    Hooked is Nir Eyal's framework for designing products that people return to without external prompting.

    A kindred business read.

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  3. The Lean Startup
    The Lean Startup

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    The Lean Startup

    Eric Ries · Business

    The Lean Startup is Eric Ries's argument that the biggest cause of startup failure is not building the wrong product — it's spending months or years building something before finding out whether anyone wants it.

    A kindred business read.

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  1. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
    Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

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    Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

    Peter Thiel · Business

    Zero to One began as notes from a Stanford course Thiel taught on startups in 2012, assembled into a book with co-author Blake Masters.

    Both dig into startups.

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  2. Crossing the Chasm
    Crossing the Chasm

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    Crossing the Chasm

    Geoffrey A. Moore · Business

    Crossing the Chasm is Geoffrey Moore's analysis of why so many technology companies succeed with early adopters and then stall before reaching mainstream customers.

    Shares product strategy and startups with The Cold Start Problem.

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  3. Hacking Growth
    Hacking Growth

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    Hacking Growth

    Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown · Business

    Hacking Growth is Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown's guide to building a growth function — an organizationally distinct, cross-functional team focused on finding and exploiting opportunities to accelerate customer acquisition, retention, and revenue.

    Shares growth and product strategy with The Cold Start Problem.

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  4. Product-Led Growth
    Product-Led Growth

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    Product-Led Growth

    Wes Bush · Business

    Product-Led Growth is Wes Bush's guide to a go-to-market strategy in which the product itself is the primary vehicle for customer acquisition, conversion, and expansion — rather than sales and marketing teams that generate leads and hand them to the product.

    Shares growth and product strategy with The Cold Start Problem.

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  5. Growth Hacker Marketing
    Growth Hacker Marketing

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    Growth Hacker Marketing

    Ryan Holiday · Business

    Growth Hacker Marketing is Ryan Holiday's short, accessible introduction to a marketing philosophy that emerged from Silicon Valley startups in the early 2010s.

    Shares growth and startups with The Cold Start Problem.

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  6. Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
    Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth

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    Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth

    Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares · Business

    Traction is Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares's systematic guide to customer acquisition for startups.

    Shares growth and startups with The Cold Start Problem.

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  7. Category Creation: How to Build a Brand That Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love
    Category Creation: How to Build a Brand That Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love

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    Category Creation: How to Build a Brand That Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love

    Anthony Kennada · Business

    Category Creation is Anthony Kennada's account of how Gainsight, where he served as chief marketing officer, built the customer success management category from scratch — and the broader argument that this approach to marketing, creating a new market category rather than competing within an existing one, produces compounding advantages that conventional brand-building rarely matches.

    Both dig into growth.

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  8. Competing Against Luck
    Competing Against Luck

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    Competing Against Luck

    Clayton M. Christensen · Business

    Competing Against Luck is Clayton Christensen's most complete development of the Jobs to Be Done framework, which he introduced briefly in The Innovator's Solution.

    Both dig into product strategy.

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  9. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
    Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

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    Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

    Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace · Business

    Creativity, Inc.

    Both dig into startups.

    Read the summary →

Books like The Cold Start Problem: quick answers

What are the best books like The Cold Start Problem?

The best books like The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen are Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel, Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with The Cold Start Problem, such as network effects, growth, product strategy.

What should I read after The Cold Start Problem?

A natural next read after The Cold Start Problem is Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh. Shares network effects and growth with The Cold Start Problem. Other strong choices are Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.

What books are similar to The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen?

The Cold Start Problem centers on network effects, growth, product strategy. Books with a similar feel include Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel, Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore, Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.

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