- blue ocean strategy (kim and mauborgne) -- these two books give you a little bit more of a framework to evaluate where your idea adds value and give you examples of how/why some successful companies have been successful
- high tech startup by nesheim -- a little dated, but lots of info
- negotiation/people books: getting to yes (fisher, ury) and getting past no (ury), influence by cialdini
(useful for more than just startups)
- maybe some management books: peopleware (demarco and lister), the art of project management (berkun), first, break all the rules (buckingham)
- founders at work (livingston) to get inspired
+1 to crossing the chasm, and the godin & gladwell books, art of the start
blogs: onstartups.com, fred wilson, brad feld, seth godin, etc., guy kawasaki
i've been in this situation before and in general, i agree. and there's a similar kind of suckage being the only technical guy in a startup (i've run a startup for a couple years with a non-technical guy -- smart, but not a hacker.)
in my case, i'm working on a new idea alone at the moment while i find the right cofounder. i've found that a good compromise that still allows you forward progress is to hang out with people who are in the same boat, even if you're not working on the same stuff. i worked over the summer with a couple yc guys who were also starting their own thing and it was great to have other people to bounce ideas off of and frankly to have other people who were stuck inside on friday nights or up at 3am (welcome to the startup world, kids -- often not as glamorous as you'd hope :)) when everyone else is out drinking. it didn't matter that we weren't working on the same stuff -- there was still that esprit de corps and a shoulder to tap when you're working on something cool.
i think it's just the being-in-a-room-by-yourself that sucks, especially if you have roommates on a completely different schedule. and i think it's worth waiting for the right cofounder, even if that means you have to hack the prototype or even launch a beta by yourself -- more startups implode for people reasons than anything else.
there's hope; a good friend of mine has been running his own show for a while after his cofounder left and he's doing fine (but works in an office with other entrepreneurial types), and founders at work has numerous examples of people who had to hoof it on their own for a period of time and did ok (evan williams, a bunch of others).
so if you're in this situation, just get some moral support and keep making forward progress until you find the right cofounder. good luck!
- the innovator's dilemma by clayton christensen
- blue ocean strategy (kim and mauborgne) -- these two books give you a little bit more of a framework to evaluate where your idea adds value and give you examples of how/why some successful companies have been successful
- high tech startup by nesheim -- a little dated, but lots of info
- negotiation/people books: getting to yes (fisher, ury) and getting past no (ury), influence by cialdini (useful for more than just startups)
- maybe some management books: peopleware (demarco and lister), the art of project management (berkun), first, break all the rules (buckingham)
- founders at work (livingston) to get inspired
+1 to crossing the chasm, and the godin & gladwell books, art of the start
blogs: onstartups.com, fred wilson, brad feld, seth godin, etc., guy kawasaki
-drew