Our Essential Books

We discuss three essential books that help us break through uncertainty and focus on the most important work. If you want to get better at designing products and building companies, we think you should read:Getting Real by 37signals, for how to get real about what mattersGood Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt, for how to give your business an unfair advantageDeep Work by Cal Newport, for staying focused and actually doing the workOn episode 11 of Jake & JZ, we also talked about:Why your business needs an enemyInsights from the “survival days” of successful companies (like the Startup Wayback Machine)Crafting strategy based on your unique advantagesWhy strategy is a hypothesisHow to summarize an entire book in 25 wordsMore lessons from journalismBad graphic designHave a question for us? Send it to [email protected] and we’ll answer it on the show.📩 Get an email about every episode at JakeAndJZ.com💸 Learn more about our seed fund at Character Capital🥸 Find Jake on LinkedIn and X🤠 Find JZ on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and X