This article showcases our top picks for
Business Books For High School Students. We reached out to industry leaders and experts who have contributed the suggestions within this article (they have been credited for their contributions below).
We are keen to hear your feedback on all of our content and our comment section is a moderated space to express your thoughts and feelings related (or not) to this article
This list is in no particular order.
This product was recommended by Abel Nunez from Creative Marketing Nerds
Most people in business operate under the assumption that their success depends on winning in pre-existing market categories. But as technology and user behavior evolve rapidly, those traditional categories are becoming increasingly less relevant. You need to identify and develop new market categories to succeed in today’s business world. That’s where Play Bigger comes in. The book provides a framework for doing just that. It includes stories of companies that have defined and dominated new categories, like Uber and Airbnb, and strategies for developing your category-defining product or service.
This product was recommended by Abel Nunez from Creative Marketing Nerds
Social media has fundamentally changed how businesses reach out to customers and vice versa. By understanding how social media works, business owners can measure the success of their campaigns and use that information to improve their marketing strategies. Analyzing the Social Web is an excellent book for high school students who want to learn more about how social media affects business. The book covers topics such as how messages go viral, how businesses can measure success on social media, and how to identify the most important or influential people in a network. In addition, the book includes case studies of successful social media campaigns, giving readers a real-world understanding of how businesses use social media to reach customers.
This product was recommended by Mel Beasley from Writer’s Hive Media
Crush It: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion* is a book by Gary Vaynerchuck (commonly known as Gary Vee), the co-founder of the restaurant reservation software company Resy and Empathy Wines. The book explores how you can make a living with your greatest passions. After reading this book, readers will have learned how they can leverage the power of the internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true.
This product was recommended by Mel Beasley from Writer’s Hive Media
Written as the second book to *Crush It*, this book is a culmination of real stories from successful entrepreneurs who found success by leveraging the power of the internet. Crushing It!, also by Gary Vaynerchuck, is certainly an inspiring read for young entrepreneurs who need to see how the best practices outlined in the first book can be applied to business growth.
This product was recommended by Katie Ziskind from Wisdom Within Counseling Intake Team
This book talks about an alternative to profit and law statements for running a business. Instead, Mike talks about having various bank accounts to keep yourself more organized and working from the system that incorporates aging money, and living within your means. It’s very easy for someone to take money that they have earned and reinvest it back into their business, but they forget to pay themselves. Mike talks about the importance of owners paying themselves. He shared the necessity for an owner of a business to pay themselves first and then to understand how the business needs to run from there. He talks about his own life experiences and mistakes and how he has grown from them. I highly recommend “Profit First” for high schoolers who are interested in business and the free podcast that goes along with it.
This product was recommended by Linda Schaffer from Checkr
This book is about how startups can create a successful business by using continuous innovation. This is a very important concept for high school students to understand, as it can help them create their own successful businesses in the future. The book can help high school students understand the concept of a lean startup, which is a new way of thinking about starting a business. The book also provides practical advice on how to create a successful lean startup.
This product was recommended by Mo Mulla from Parental Questions
The book Become the Youngest Businessperson in Town: 111 Teen Business Ideas: From Simple $100 Plans to Great Personal Projects is an excellent resource for high school students interested in starting their own business. The book provides a wide variety of business ideas that can be tailored to fit any budget or skill level, and it offers helpful tips and advice on how to get started. This book is a great option for any high school student who is looking to start their own business. It is packed with valuable information and will help them take their first steps toward becoming a successful young entrepreneur.
This product was recommended by Aimee White from Keyboard Kings
I was introduced to this book through a business podcast. I had heard of Brendan Kane before through his successes and notoriety as an out of the box thinker. This book is so relevant to today’s market of micro-attention. My doe-eyed youth has faded, so the new world being created behind me can be a little foreign. This book really helped me figure out marketing and business strategies to fit in with the new crowd. If there are young people who are looking to understand business, this book will undoubtedly provide them with relevant insights into the world where they are a consumer. The book can teach them how to use these strategies in their favor rather than being a slave to its charm – I can’t reccomend it enough.
This product was recommended by David Wurst from WebCitz
A must-read book. It teaches us the importance of having financial literacy and how it encourages us to mobilize money. This great piece also tackled the nature of money – the difference between working for money and making money work for you. It’s an incredible read for high school students as it discusses the importance of education in having a financially trained mind.
This product was recommended by David Wurst from WebCitz
This book provides a genuine look into startup life. A lot of young people think it’s easy to get rich fast when they have their own business, but with this book, they’ll learn the reality of being a startup founder. I think this is an effective field guide for navigating the business world, perfect for high schoolers who plan to open their own companies in the future.
This product was recommended by David Wurst from WebCitz
It’s a great read for high school students who want to start a small business. Gerber pointed out the idea of Fatal Assumption, where if you understand the technical work of a business, you automatically understand a business that does that technical work. It offers the readers a great lesson on how to succeed by being innovative and visionary.
This product was recommended by Christina Russo from The Kitchen Community
Because it provides any young person with the guidance they need to hone and focus their creativity and imagination into creating sustainable, workable business ventures that can help them to make money. In other words, it’s the guidebook that all of the future entrepreneurs who will help to shape tomorrow should, and need to, be reading.
This product was recommended by Theresa Personna from Kogan Page Inc.
The Young Entrepreneur – co-authored by Swish Goswami and Quinn Underwood wrote about their experiences starting up companies while they were still enrolled in college. As the rising stars of the Gen Z entrepreneurs, Goswami and Underwood are voicing what it’s like to be doubted while so young yet so knowledgeable in what you wish to do. As people who’ve lived through the experience, they are here to tell the tale to those who don’t want to wait to accomplish their dreams.
This product was recommended by Michelle Henry from Outdoor Dog Fun
This book trains readers to have a more strategic mindset – and it is not a surprise that it is required reading at some of the best business schools in the world. It is perfect to teach high schoolers the though processes needed to succeed in business (as well as thrive in life). Authors Dixit and Nalebuff teach strategic principles by blending theory with real world case studies, so that readers know the ins and outs of good strategy, and as well as having the capability to apply them to any situation. The logic is easy to follow, and though there is complex discussion (including concepts like game theory), the writing is conversational, making it perfect for students. For me, the magic of this book is that it gives you more than just an academic understanding of the principles of business strategy, but can also teach you how to apply them practically – meaning it is an utterly unrivalled guide.
This product was recommended by Tomek Mlodzki from PhotoAiD
Amazon was founded in a garage in 1994, and today it is the richest company in the world. But how did it make it? Working backwards is both a practical guide and a story about the company. They present insightful analysis and explain in an accessible way how their principles can be applied to other companies – regardless of their size. This is a very good position for a person starting out in business. Full of interesting examples taken from life.
This product was recommended by Jeffrey Moore from Everyday Power
If you’re on the lookout for a simple business book, then this business book for high school students is the perfect book for you. The LLC Beginner’s Guide for Aspiring Entrepreneurs: All the Information to Start Your Limited Liability Company by Paul Chasey can explain entrepreneurship in an easy-to-understand manner. This book will help you understand LLC, the perks and disadvantages of making your business into one, and basically anything and everything about a business. Hence, this book can be your guide in setting up your own business, even if you are still a high school student.
This product was recommended by Alexa Justine Callada from Stayyy
This is a guide for anyone who wants to start their own online business. It’s a step by step process that will allow you to research, validate, and choose the perfect online business idea. Step One: The Surprisingly Simple Process To Research, Validate, And Choose The Perfect Online Business Idea This is the first step in our journey to starting your own online business. For this step we will need to do some research and validation of ideas. Researching is an important part of any success story in entrepreneurship. It can be difficult but it’s always worth the effort because it can save time and money in the long run. Validation is also an important part of any success story in entrepreneurship. Validation ensures that you have a product or service people want before you spend
This product was recommended by Ellie Walters from FindPeopleFaster
It explains that there are different paths to success. It gives practical tips. It illustrates how to apply lifestyle principles in unpredictable economic situations.
This product was recommended by Ellie Walters from FindPeopleFaster
It contains proven strategies for bringing tech products into the mainstream market. It thoroughly explains the life cycle of tech adoption. It also defines new strategies for marketing in the digital world.
This product was recommended by Ellie Walters from FindPeopleFaster
It is a part-adventure and part-leadership guidebook. It talks about bringing order to chaos through leadership. It encourages optimism and risks worth taking
This product was recommended by David Lee from Inyouths LED Mirrors
From Idea to Success is the best business book for high school students because it provides a simple, step-by-step guide for starting and running a successful business. The book covers everything from developing a business plan and raising capital to marketing and customer service. Plus, the authors are Dartmouth business professors who have collected knowledge and tricks for students wanting to become entrepreneurs. So their advice is both tried and tested, and it comes from someone who knows what he’s talking about. If you’re in high school and serious about starting your own business, this book is for you.
This product was recommended by Lorie Carson from Real People Finder
The book Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz is about how hard things are. In The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz talks about how to run a business. Even if you try hard, things won’t always go as you want. Horowitz talks about the bad parts of the company, his mistakes as a leader, and how his team fixed things (or screwed things up even more).
This product was recommended by Steve Anderson from Junk Yard Near Me
Every business moment is unique, says the first sentence of this groundbreaking book. Blake Masters was in Peter Thiel’s Stanford University class when he took Zero to One. The book is based on Thiel’s lessons as a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and an investor in hundreds of startups, including Facebook and SpaceX.