> - Finance - Accounting - Taxes

My take has always been that you don't need to be an expert on these things, you just need to know the basics... enough to not do anything blatantly illegal or whatever - with an eye towards hiring somebody (even just a contractor or outsource agency) to deal with this stuff when you have real revenue. But for most startups, "you should be so lucky to have the problem" of actually getting far enough for accounting and taxes to matter. If you do, there are tons of agencies that offer "part time CFO" services and outsource accounting.

To get the very basics, I just reference stuff like Cost Accounting for Dummies, Financial Accounting for Dummies, Managerial Accounting for Dummies and a college accounting text I bought for a quarter at a used book store.

> Sales and Marketing - Operations

I'm going to take a pretty expansive view of what this includes, so I'll start with two books:

1. The Four Steps To The Epiphany - Steve Blank

2. The Art of the Start - Guy Kawasaki

Also, for the basics on stuff like "how to incorporate" just look for any of the generic NOLO[1] books that you can find in the small business / entrepreneurship section at Barnes & Noble. There'll be something like "How to incorporate your business". Note that you can probably go a long way in terms of developing "product market fit" before you even bother incorporating.

But once you get to a point where you need to handle money, you will need a business bank account. To open one of those, you'll typically need two or three things: A copy of your company's Articles of Incorporation / Bylaws (you'll have filed these when you incorporated), an EIN number[2] (you can get this online in about 10 minutes from the IRS) and a minimum deposit. And whoever goes down to open the account will probably need their personal ID (drivers license, whatever).

If you have co-founders, are raising capital, etc. and need to deal with equity issues, there are some "stock" documents[3] out there from YC that you may want to look into. There is also a lot of info out there on equity, startup funding, etc. at VentureHacks.[4] There are also several good books on dealing with VC's, etc. BUT... a note: Not all startups need to, or should, or can, raise money from VC's. Be careful not to obsess over fund-raising. Remember, the real goal is to make money not to raise money.

OK, going back to sales and marketing for a bit... I am getting tired of typing, so I'm just going to dump a list of books and/or links to previous discussions here and skip the exposition for now.

Mastering The Complex Sale, The Prime Process and Exceptional Selling all by Jeff Thull.

The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes

Sell or Be Sold - Grant Cardone

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4417443

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5591574

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8049940

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8050058

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7653263

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2495939

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3496969

[1]: http://www.nolo.com/

[2]: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-%26-Self-Empl...

[3]: https://www.ycombinator.com/documents/

[4]: http://venturehacks.com/