20 Must-Read Blogs for Online Entrepreneurs
Posted April 10, 2009 in Business, Tools/Resources 62 Comments »
One of the most important parts of being an online entrepreneur is maintaining an intellectual edge. Those who work and start businesses on the web are always learning, always watching other businesses, and always looking for new sources of information.
The goal of this list is to provide that — 20 useful, thought-provoking, and potentially lucrative sources of news and ideas. Each of these blogs are run by leading individuals and companies, and together they can help form a cornerstone of learning in your daily schedule.
Not all of these blogs are about entrepreneurship, or even business, but all of them are well-written and definitely worth looking at.
Here’s the list in no specific order:
- 1. OnStartups Written primarily by Dharmesh Shah, OnStartups is a blog about entrepreneurs and new companies, mostly in the online space. There’s enough good information here to fuel at least a few new ideas from every read.
- 2. How to Change the World This is a blog written by former Apple evangelist and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. Having launched multiple online ventures personally, and funded even more than that through his VC firm, he’s definitely worth listening to.
- 3. VentureBeat Possibly skewed a bit towards the offline world, VentureBeat is still worth reading for online entrepreneurs. All of their stuff is well written and well thought out.
- 4. Mashable One of the bigger blogs, and entirely focused on Social Media, Mashable is often passed over by serious entrepreneurs. That being said, this blog often has breaking business news and information that can be incredibly useful for anyone dealing with social media (which should be every online entrepreneur).
- 5. yCombinator’s Hacker News yCombinator is one of a handful of companies dedicated solely to providing seed money for online ventures. This is their blog. (Note: it’s highly tech oriented)
- 6. Scobleizer Scobleizer is one of the earliest tech blogs written by the often-controversial Robert Scoble. It’s a blog filled with opinion and advice that are frequently contrary to other information sources. For that reason, it’s a good read.
- 7. ReadWriteWeb This is another blog that feverishly covers tech news and startups. It’s got a lot of good information and frequently covers the latest developments in the tech world.
- 8. ValleyWag ValleyWag is a blog run by Gawker media that follows the ups and downs of silicon valley. For tech enbtrepreneurs, this blog is definitely a must-read.
- 9. A VC Accurately self-described as “Musings of a VC in NYC”, this blog is one of the best resources for anyone looking to glean some wisdom from an experienced venture capitalist.
- 10. The Eco Capitalist Written by Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, this is a blog about breaking from tradition and launching a business based around environmentally friendly ideals.
- 11. Signal vs. Noise SVN is a blog by the popular company 37signals. As one of the biggest and most prominent online startups in recent years, they have lot of useful information to share with other entrepreneurs.
- 12. Seth Godin’s Blog Written by the 10-time-bestselling author Seth Godin, this is a blog about marketing, markets, and how people think. It’s also a blog that just about every entrepreneur should take a look at.
- 13. Tim Berry’s Blog This is a blog written by the guy behind the popular “Business Plan Pro” software. There’s much more opinion and advice here than news, but it’s from a very knowledgeable source.
- 14. Work Happy A collection of online tools and resources for entrepreneurs, Work Happy is definitely a valuable blog to viist. It’s not updated very often, but the content is worth the visit anyhow.
- 15. Information Arbitrage Information Arbitrage is a site written by a Wall Street investor turned web entrepreneur. It’s very financially technical, and provides a lot of business insight.
- 16. The Netsetter Written by the CEO of the Envato Network, Collis Ta’eed, this blog provides an unprecedented look into the thoughts of a very successful online entrepreneur.
- 17. Startup Company Lawyer This is a blog that’s actually about the legal aspects of running a new company. This information is in short supply, and can definitely provide a boost to potential entrepreneurs.
- 18. Get Elastic Get Elastic is a blog about e-commerce and how to get website visitors to buy things. If your business plan involves this type of conversion, then this blog is a must-read.
- 19. Lessons Learned Written by venture capitalist Eric Ries, this is a blog that is definitely a must-read. Topics vary considerable, and every post is chocked full of good info.
- 20. GrokDotCom This is a blog by the conversion and optimization company FutureNow, Inc. It centers on usability, conversion, and overall optimization of a variety of different websites.
That’s it for our list — but what do you think? Did we miss any critical resources? Did you read some of these blogs and decide they weren’t worth it?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer. Follow him on twitter @MasonHipp
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62 Comments
Cristian Graziano
April 10th, 2009 at 2:13 pmI hadn’t heard of the Startup Lawyer. Definitely bookmarking this one!
Tom Ransom
April 10th, 2009 at 3:01 pmHow about an OPML list? Not that we’re lazy or anything like that.
Catherine Cantieri, Sorted
April 10th, 2009 at 4:39 pmCool list! I’ve already bookmarked five of them!
Mitesh
April 10th, 2009 at 5:05 pmThis post is amazingly helpful. Thank you for sharing!
logo designer
April 10th, 2009 at 5:06 pmI love the start-up lawyer link. That is going to be very useful.
mylotnovice.com
April 10th, 2009 at 5:10 pmThanks for the list, hope I will learn something usefull.
Dharmesh Shah
April 10th, 2009 at 6:19 pmThanks for including OnStartups.com in the list. I’m in great company.
Quick note: Correct spelling of my name is “Dharmesh Shah”. (People misspell it all the time).
Mason Hipp
April 10th, 2009 at 6:23 pm@Dharmesh,
Ouch! That was a catastrophic spelling mistake — sorry about that! All fixed now though, thanks for the catch :-)
– Mason
Colin Wright
April 10th, 2009 at 7:07 pmVERY nice list! Im reading most of these, but there are a few that I’ll have to tack on to my near-toppling pile of daily reads.
Thanks!
Romel
April 11th, 2009 at 7:48 amNice one Bro…did nt know about “Scobleizer”…
Barry Welford
April 11th, 2009 at 11:45 amThis is an excellent list and any entrepreneur will be well served if they checked the RSS feeds of these in their feed aggregator like Bloglines or Google Reader on a regular basis. Thanks for this.
Nikhil
April 11th, 2009 at 1:37 pmThanks for the List Mason,
I am already a big fan of OnStartups & The Netsetter.
Both blog are very inspirational and helpful.
Paul
April 11th, 2009 at 7:30 pmThanks for the list. Think maybe next time you can include a little more info, like how often they publish and some kind of rating of each?
Yokum Taku
April 11th, 2009 at 7:40 pmThanks for the inclusion on the list. BTW – it is StartupCompanyLawyer, not StartupLawyer.
Joe
April 12th, 2009 at 12:58 amThanks for the post. I am definitely adding at least three of these blogs to my reading list.
namefield
April 12th, 2009 at 4:40 amnews.ycombinator.com is not a blog
Satyajit
April 12th, 2009 at 5:50 amAny particular reason I don’t see TechCrunch out here?
Steven Finch
April 12th, 2009 at 6:38 amI cant believe http://crenk.com wasnt added to the list.
Sean McColgan
April 12th, 2009 at 6:41 amGreat list – loving veturehacks content at the moment…grokking some great ideas from their blog posts & podcasts (venture voice).
Also worth the sub are the blogs over @ Harvard Business School http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/
Sean McColgan
April 12th, 2009 at 7:02 amForgot to mention http://blog.mixergy.com/ by Andrew Warner it’s got to be one of the best entrepreneur blogs out there…
Broiezo Seetu
April 12th, 2009 at 8:47 ami think techcrunch too popular to mention it worth :)
Don McArthur
April 12th, 2009 at 9:51 am#15: “Information Arbitrage is a site written by a Wall Street investor turned web entrepreneur. It’s very finacially technicaly, and provides a lot of business insight.”
Help! ;^)
Birte
April 12th, 2009 at 1:39 pmInvaluable information for anyone doing business via the net. And who is not these days.
I will surely check out the sites that are relevant to me. I am sure it will take a little time and
energy, but well worth it.
solexy
April 12th, 2009 at 4:58 pmreally good list
AC
April 12th, 2009 at 7:28 pmYou could have also mentioned Securing Innovation, the business blog of IP.com. All about protecting intellectual property.
Adam
April 12th, 2009 at 8:37 pmWith all this blog reading, how will they ever find time to start their business? Less reading, more working… :-)
Meryl K. Evans
April 12th, 2009 at 10:10 pmhttp://www.WebWorkerDaily.com covers everything you need to know to work from anywhere. http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog/ is all about entrepreneurship.
Andrew Warner
April 13th, 2009 at 1:57 pm@Sean, thanks for suggesting my site.
@Mason, great list.
myDevWares
April 14th, 2009 at 9:35 amThanks for the list, definitely will add some of these blogs to my RSS feed…. Just what I needed.
ritchie
April 14th, 2009 at 3:11 pmThanks for the list – I had most of these feeds in my reader, but I discovered a couple of new blogs. OPML would be a nice add-on indeed :-)
Yasmine
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:01 pmI found the greatest marketing idea of all time – in a FREE book http://www.supertips.com/ultimate/x/?id=3160
check it out..you have nothing to lose and a lot to gain!
Mitch
June 30th, 2009 at 12:14 pmThis list was very helpful. For me though, I found it easier to read books about creating my own start-up. Like I found this guy Rob who started his own sport marketing company and is actually successful in an industry I percieved as impossible to get into with all the contacts you need and such. Anyway, his book is Young Guns and it really helped to when I started my own business.
Affordable Website Design
July 13th, 2009 at 7:07 amthis list is very useful for me.I will get great marketing ideas from these blogs.
Ajay
July 24th, 2009 at 1:40 pmThank you for sharing this good list. I’ll add them to my reader.
It would be very good if you update it regularly.
Sympathy Gifts
July 25th, 2009 at 11:36 pmWhat a great list of sites. I am bookmarking them for future reference. It is very true about the ongoing learning process necessary to run a successful online business.
mei
August 1st, 2009 at 10:14 pmCan’t state enough how important the entrepreneurial spirit is.
Curious if anyone has caught this book yet? “The Richest Man in Town” by W Randall Jones. I’ve read half of it so far and let me tell you it is well worth it. Would like to hear what everyone else thought of it?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446537837?ie=UTF8&tag=richestmanint-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0446537837
Karol Zielinski
August 10th, 2009 at 9:35 amyou should add some more interesting blogs to your list… like: http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/ http://www.quicksprout.com/ http://carsonified.com/ http://blog.karolzielinski.com … however this list of websites is still really good.
Vic of BusinessAccent
August 20th, 2009 at 6:33 amI have visited some of them, but not all. I thought I already visited many great business blogs, but there are still nice marketing and entrepreneurship blogs out there. Definitely for my bookmark.
Denny | StartupShack
August 29th, 2009 at 3:00 pmWow…VERY nice list of resources! Thx.
Freelancer Online
September 4th, 2009 at 5:42 amI’ve found a few really good blogs in the list.
Check out my blog, maybe you want to add it to the list;)
That would be really great!
Annette
September 8th, 2009 at 7:06 amThanks for sharing this info.
Very useful!
Annette
Kevin
September 28th, 2009 at 4:44 pmAdd your “online entrepreneur” content to the Web Entrepreneur Network carnival at http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_8330.html — a great way to get noticed!
How to Buy a Business
October 3rd, 2009 at 8:52 pmNot surprisingly, I have been reading half of these blogs for over a year now and will check out the others as well.
Jonathan Yates
October 9th, 2009 at 4:50 amI am just starting out blogging on the back of my new book and have really enjoyed this link – thank you
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November 19th, 2009 at 5:59 pm,..] freelancefolder.com is one another useful source of information on this subject,..]
Sunil
December 8th, 2009 at 1:36 amGreat.. Thanks for sharing…
AlienTYC
December 31st, 2009 at 11:21 pmThanks for the list! They are very helpful for my online start-up strategy!
San Francisco Web design
February 1st, 2010 at 8:03 amgreat 20 more exciting blogs for me to get in-touch with…. thanks a lot to share
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