The Best Innovation Books from The IO Bookshelf
Our goal is to bring you insights from the world of corporate and startup innovation. Over the past five years, we’ve sat down with more than 60 authors to find the best innovation books out there.
To help you find the right advice, at the right time, we’ve curated a list of the innovation books we recommend, from the authors we’ve had the great pleasure to interview and work with. Whether you’re interested in corporate innovation; startup innovation; individual, team, hiring & leadership innovation; or future innovation, we’ve got you covered.
All of the authors can be found on the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, Inside Outside Innovation Summits, or at other IO special events – check out our IO LIVE Series.
The IO Bookshelf
New Innovation Books to Check Out
- The Invincible Company: How to Constantly Reinvent Your Organization with Inspiration From the World’s Best Business Models – Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur & Alan Smith
- Pirates In The Navy: How Innovators Lead Transformation – Tendayi Viki
- The Acorn Method: How Companies Get Growing Again – Henrik Werdelin
- Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking Into Breakthrough Growth & Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Today’s Business While Creating the Future – Mark Johnson
- The Adaptation Advantage: Let Go, Learn Fast, and Thrive in the Future of Work – Chris Shipley
- Forever Employable: How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You – Jeff Gothelf
- What’s Your Problem: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve – Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg
Corporate Innovation Books
Experimentation
- Testing Business Ideas – David Bland & Alexander Osterwalder
- Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments – Stefan Thomke
- Lean Analytics – Ben Yoskovitz & Alistair Croll
Corporate / Startup Collaboration
- Collective Disruption: How Corporations & Startups Can Co-Create Transformative New Businesses – Michael Docherty
- Predicting The Turn: The High Stakes Game Of Business Between Startups And Blue Chips – Dave Knox
- The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business – Neil Soni. (Inside Outside Innovation is featured in the book!)
Product Management
- Beyond The Prototype: A roadmap for navigating the fuzzy area between ideas and outcomes – Douglas Ferguson
- Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value – Mellisa Perri
- High-Velocity Innovation: How to Get Your Best Ideas to Market Faster, The Mastery of Innovation: A Field Guide to Lean Product Development, and The Shortest Distance Between You and Your New Product: How Innovators Use Rapid Learning Cycles to Get Their Best Ideas to Market Faster – Katherine Radeka
- Testing Business Ideas – David Bland & Alexander Osterwalder
Corporate Growth
- Fearless Innovation: Going Beyond the Buzzword to Continuously Drive Growth, Improve the Bottom Line, and Enact Change – Alex Gorvachev
- What’s Your Problem: To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Change the Problems You Solve – Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg
- The Corporate Startup: How established companies can develop successful innovation ecosystems, & The Lean Product Lifecycle: A playbook for making products people want – Tendayi Viki
- Lean vs Agile vs Design Thinking, Lean UX, & Sense & Respond – Jeff Gothelf
- Outcomes Over Outputs, Sense and Respond, and Lean UX – Josh Seiden
- The Change Maker’s Playbook: How to Seek, Seed, and Scale Innovation in Any Company – Amy J. Radin
- Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption – Thales Teixeira
- The Critical Few: Energize Your Company’s Culture by Choosing What Really Matters – Jon Katzenbach & Gretchen Anderson
- The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business – Neil Soni.
- Today’s Innovator – How to create an environment where innovation thrives – Aaron Proietti
- Collaborative Advantage: How collaboration beats competition as a strategy for success – Paul Skinner
- The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth – Eric Ries
- Ninja Future: Secrets to Success in the New World of Innovation – Gary Shapiro
- Driving Innovation from Within: A Guide for Internal Entrepreneurs – Kaihan Krippendorff
- Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills, and Mindsets for Strategy and Innovation – Lisa Kay Solomon
- Competing in the Connecting World: The Future of Your Industry Is Already Here – Gregg Garrett
- The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems – Dan Toma
- Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age – Greg Satell
- Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results & Lean Enterprise: How High-Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale – Barry O’Reilly
Startup Innovation Books
Advice
- UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design – Laura Klein
- All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything Is on the Line and The Curiosity Muscle – Diana Kander
- Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works & Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth – Ash Maurya
- Straight Talk for Startups: 100 Insider Rules for Beating the Odds–From Mastering the Fundamentals to Selecting Investors, Fundraising, Managing Boards, and Achieving Liquidity – Randy Komisar
- Traction: A Startup’s Guide to Getting Customers – Justin Mares
- Born to Build: How to Build a Thriving Startup, a Winning Team, New Customers and Your Best Life Imaginable – Jim Clifton & Sangeeta Badal
- The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets – Brant Cooper
- The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster–and How Nine Other Startups Left the Rest in the Dust – Sean Ammirati
Startup Communities
- Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City – Brad Feld
- Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of Americas New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City – Tim Sprinkle
Angel/Venture Investing
- Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups–Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000 – Jason Calacanis
- It’s About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated into Your Greatest Advantage – Arlan Hamilton
- Straight Talk for Startups: 100 Insider Rules for Beating the Odds–From Mastering the Fundamentals to Selecting Investors, Fundraising, Managing Boards, and Achieving Liquidity – Randy Komisar
Individual, Team, Hiring & Leadership Innovation Books
Individuals
- Forever Employable: How to Stop Looking for Work and Let Your Next Job Find You – Jeff Gothelf
- It’s About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated into Your Greatest Advantage – Arlan Hamilton
- Disrupt It Yourself: Hacking the Corporation to Make if Fast, Fluid and Frugal – Simone Ahuja
- Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break All the Rules in Work and in Life – Francesca Gino
- Innovator’s DNA, Innovator’s Method, and Innovation Capital. – Jeff Dyer & Co-authors
- Employee to Entrepreneur: How to Earn Your Freedom and Do Work that Matters – Steve Glaveski
- This Might Get Me Fired: A Manual for Surviving in the Corporate Entrepreneurial Underground – Greg Larkin
- Superconnector: Stop Networking and Start Building Business Relationships that Matter – Ryan Paugh
Teams
- Leader Board: The DNA of High-Performance Teams and The Servant Leader’s Manifesto – Omar Luqmann-Harris
- Dream Teams: Working Together without Falling Apart – Shane Snow
Hiring
- The Future of Tech Is Female: How to Achieve Gender Diversity – Doug Branson
- Hiring for the Innovation Economy: Three Steps to Improve Performance and Diversity – Nicole Rufuku
Leadership
- How to Be An Inclusive Leader: Your Role in Creating Cultures of Belonging Where Everyone Can Thrive – Jennifer Brown
- Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters – Gleb Tsipursky
- Making Progress: The 7 Responsibilities of the Innovation Leader – Ryan Jacoby
- Today’s Innovator – How to create an environment where innovation thrives – Aaron Proietti
Future Innovation Issues / Trend Books
- What CEOs Need to Know About Design – Audrey Crane
- The Humachine: Humankind, Machines, and the Future of Enterprise – Nada Sanders & John Wood
- Game Thinking: Innovate Smarter & Drive Deep Engagement with Design Techniques from Hit Games – Amy Jo Kim
- Topple: The End of the Firm-Based Strategy and the Rise of New Models for Explosive Growth – Ralph Welborn
- Automating Humanity – Joe Toscano
- The Government Fix – Sara Hudson & Hana Schank
We’re committed to providing an inclusive community of innovators. Who did we miss? What are some of your favorite innovation publications?
More Innovation Resources
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