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Starting a side hustle is challenging, and many people give up during the early stages. One way to stay connected to your goals and dreams is to work with a mentor, which can be expensive. The second best choice is to read books on side hustles and business startups, which are excellent resources. Here are 15 Books to Inspire Success in Business Side Hustles.
1. Crush It! Now Is the Time to Monetize Your Passions — Gary Vaynerchuk
Love him or loathe him, Gary Vaynerchuk is a successful entrepreneur who has helped others build a side hustle or business. The book is a practical guide that follows Gary on his journey of turning his first business into a multimillion-dollar success using the power of social media. He advises budding entrepreneurs to choose a niche, build a personal brand, become prolific content creators, and be the go-to expert in their chosen field.
2. Hustle and Grow Rich — Neil Patel
If you’re in business and haven’t heard of Neil Patel, you must have been hiding under a rock. Neil is a successful entrepreneur who encourages entrepreneurs to stay true to themselves, help others, and find purpose and meaning in business rather than focus only on making money. This approach is refreshing in an industry addicted to the hustle narrative of becoming rich by devoting every moment of your waking life to business.
3. The $100 Startup — Chris Guillebeau
Chris Guillebeau is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author who believes business success is not dependent on financial circumstances or background. He embraces the possibility of starting a business with low startup costs and shares practical advice. He discourages a linear path to success and encourages readers to get creative, think unconventionally, and find a profitable gap in the market.
4. The Side Hustle: Turn Your Spare Time Into $1000 a Month or More — Nick Loper
Nick Loper is a successful entrepreneur who started the Side Hustle Nation website in 2017. The site quickly became a top resource for people seeking additional income or a way out of the rat race. The book covers practical ideas for business models such as e-commerce, affiliate marketing, and freelancing. Written in a conversational style, The Side Hustle is an easy and insightful read.
5. The Lean Startup — Eric Ries
Eric Ries is a startup advisor and successful entrepreneur. Startup businesses have a high failure rate, primarily because success depends on more than a great idea. The book presents Eric’s methodology for starting, building, and managing a new startup to avoid the risk of failure. He encourages failing forward, testing, and adapting the business based on results, the market, and shareholder feedback.
6. What if It Does Work Out? — Susie Moore
Fear of success can be as much a business roadblock as fear of failure. Susie Moore is a life coach who encourages readers to push past self-doubt, overcome fear, and take calculated risks to achieve their goals.
Instead of asking yourself, “What if it doesn’t work out?” Susie encourages you to take an optimistic outlook and consider what might happen if it works out perfectly: you escape the rat race and become a successful entrepreneur.
7. Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days — Chris Guillebeau
Side Hustle is a step-by-step guide for building a startup by Chris Guillebeau. The book offers practical and actionable advice. Guillebeau encourages readers to quickly move from idea to action, testing and fine-tuning without investing too much energy and finance into an idea that may not work. The book contains helpful exercises, templates, worksheets, checklists, and several inspiring case studies of successful side hustles. Guillebeau’s writing style makes this book an easy and enjoyable read.
8. 10X Is Better Than 2X — Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
I devoured this book in two days! Dan Sullivan is a coach for super-successful entrepreneurs. Dr. Benjamin Hardy is a best-selling author and organizational psychologist.
The concept is that it’s easier to achieve bigger goals, which seems counterintuitive. The authors theorize that focusing on the “four freedoms” (time, money, purpose, and relationship) makes us value our time more highly, resulting in 10X results.
Something the book inadvertently taught me was that I had a money ceiling. When I imagined timing my income by 10, I felt decidedly uncomfortable. Working through the book helped me accept I am worthy and capable of making ten times my income.
9. She Means Business — Carrie Green
Carrie Green has a relatable personality and a grasp on the challenges of starting and maintaining a side hustle. She launched her first business online when she was only 20 years old and shares the self-doubts and struggles she encountered. The book is a practical guide to building a brand, a loyal following, and looking after your customers. It contains exercises and tips to help creative female entrepreneurs decide if the side hustle culture suits them.
10. Startup Opportunities — Sean Wise & Brad Feld
This book is suitable for inexperienced entrepreneurs or those with several startups under their belt. It focuses on positioning to succeed and laying a foundation for long-term and profitable growth. You’ll learn how to assess a business’s viability and when to quit your day job. Most helpful are the valuable lessons from case studies of successful venture capitalists.
11. How to Start a Side Hustle — Kaylene Langford
Kaylene Langford is a business coach. This book is part of the author’s Survive the Modern World series. It’s pocket-sized and has 143 pages. Still, it’s packed with zero fluff, practical activities, and advice on building a sustainable business model by identifying your purpose and passion, marketing and brand execution, and business refinement.
12. Don’t Keep Your Day Job: How to Turn Your Passion Into Your Career — Cathy Heller
This book has the same title as Cathy Heller’s successful podcast. It’s an inspiring book that helps readers turn their passion into a business by focusing on finding meaning and purpose. The content covers multiple topics, from self-reflection, contribution, mass email marketing, social media, and standing out from the crowd.
13. How to Start a Business Without Any Money — Rachel Bridge
Insufficient funds are often a mental stumbling block for starting a side hustle, especially during a recession or financial crisis. Rachel Bridge was an Enterprise Editor for The Sunday Times and learned from hundreds of entrepreneurs she interviewed to start a business. This book charts her journey, documenting the obstacles you might encounter and providing real-world coping strategies.
14. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — Stephen R Covey
For many successful entrepreneurs, this book was their startup bible to success. For its 30th anniversary edition, the book provides a timeless blueprint to starting a business, which is about adopting seven core principles:
Be Proactive
Begin with the End in Mind
Put First Things First
Think Win/Win
Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Synergize
Sharpen the Saw
The book is a step-by-step guide to starting a business while maintaining integrity, developing the wisdom to adapt and change when necessary, and making empowering business decisions.
15. You’re Kind of a Big Deal — Erin King
Erin King’s book encourages women to step into their power and be audacious in pursuit of bigger dreams. The author is a successful entrepreneur and an international keynote speaker who speaks from lived experience. The book is an excellent resource and provides practical tools for entrepreneurs to build a business, overcome challenges, accept feedback, and remain authentic personally and professionally.
