Top 33 Innovation Books to Read in 2019 (+ Bonus Picks)

Thought Leaders, Entrepreneurs, & Innovation Books

With hundreds of innovation books on the market, how do you decide where to go for the best advice?  The Inside Outside Innovation podcast brings you the latest thinking in corporate/startup innovation, by interviewing authors and innovators that can help you take your company to the next level. The following innovation books are some of the best ones on the market and some of the best guests we’ve had on the podcast.

1. 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!)
2. Hiring for the Innovation Economy: Three Steps to Improve Performance and Diversity – Nicole Rufuku
3. The Future of Tech Is Female: How to Achieve Gender Diversity – Doug Branson
4. Topple: The End of the Firm-Based Strategy and the Rise of New Models for Explosive Growth – Ralph Welborn
5. This Might Get Me Fired: A Manual for Surviving in the Corporate Entrepreneurial Underground – Greg Larkin

6. Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City – Brad Feld

7. The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth – Eric Ries

8. Game Thinking: Innovate Smarter & Drive Deep Engagement with Design Techniques from Hit Games – Amy Jo Kim
9. 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
10. Dream Teams: Working Together without Falling Apart – Shane Snow
11. Making Progress: The 7 Responsibilities of the Innovation Leader – Ryan Jacoby
12. The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster – Sean Ammirati 
13. Superconnector: Stop Networking and Start Building Business Relationships that Matter – Ryan Paugh
14. Traction: A Startup’s Guide to Getting Customers – Justin Mares
15. Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age –  Greg Satell
16. The Corporate Startup: How Established Companies Can Develop Successful Innovation Ecosystems – Dan Toma
17. Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry – David Robertson
18. Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups–Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000 – Jason Calacanis
19. Collective Disruption: How Corporations & Startups Can Co-Create Transformative New Businesses – Michael Docherty
20. Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works and Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth – Ash Maurya
21. The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback – Dan Olsen
22. Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously – Josh Seiden & Jeff Gothelf
23. Disrupt It Yourself: Hacking the Corporation to Make if Fast, Fluid and Frugal – Simone Ahuja
24. UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design – Laura Klein
25. The Curiosity Muscle and All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything Is on the Line – Diana Kander
26. Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills, and Mindsets for Strategy and Innovation – Lisa Kay Solomon
27. Born to Build: How to Build a Thriving Startup, a Winning Team, New Customers and Your Best Life Imaginable – Jim Clifton & Sangeeta Badal 
28. Automating Humanity – Joe Toscano
29. The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets – Brant Cooper
30. Screw the Valley: A Coast-to-Coast Tour of America’s New Tech Startup Culture: New York, Boulder, Austin, Raleigh, Detroit, Las Vegas, Kansas City – Tim Sprinkle 
31. The Change Maker’s Playbook: How to Seek, Seed, and Scale Innovation in Any Company – Amy J. Radin

3 BONUS Picks:

Here are a few others We’d recommend that have just come out or can be pre-ordered. Check these out as well…

1. Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results – Barry O’Reilly (Barry also was the co-author of  Lean Enterprise: How High-Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale)
2. Employee to Entrepreneur: How to Earn Your Freedom and Do Work that Matters – Steve Glaveski
3. Today’s Innovator – Aaron Proietti

What did we miss?  What are some of your favorites? Let us know and we’ll try to get them on the show.

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