Eddie Machaalani is the co-founder and co-CEO of Bigcommerce, the leading e-commerce platform for small businesses looking to grow their revenues faster. Starting with $20,000 in credit card debt from a rented office above a friend’s shop in Sydney, Australia, the company has grown over 100% year-over-year, has raised $35M in capital and processed over $1 billion in transactions.
Eddie holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Technology, Sydney and is an active angel investor and speaker.
A prodigious reader, he has found business books to be an invaluable resource as he’s built his business along with partner Mitch Harper, and we’re delighted to have him share his choices in this latest instalment of the continuing series, “3 business books that changed my life” …
Extreme Revenue Growth: Startup Secrets to Growing Your Sales from $1 Million to $25 Million in Any Industry by Victor Cheng
An incredible, “best kept secret” book for startups that touches on every part of the business and really drives home the strategies of all great businesses and how to fuel revenue growth. Every founder needs to read this book at least once a year.
It provides advice to CEOs who run fast growing companies, explaining how what they do differently is really important for their business.
Written by Victor Cheng, he explores the management techniques used by successful technology companies and shows how these practices can be applied across different industries.
Extreme Revenue Growth explores a practical approach to apply in business, explaining that growth is not a result of your strategic planning, sales, marketing, R&D, operations, or human resources being ‘right’. The trick is to make sure that all of these areas are right at the same time, as it will create a domino effect that will trigger growth across all areas of the business.
Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms by Jeffrey Bussgang
With no previous capital raising experience or even a CFO on our team, we were able to raise over $35mm in capital in very large part to what we learned through this book.
This book is for entrepreneurs who are looking to raise venture capital and choose an investor.
Mastering the VC Game is written by Jeffrey Bussgang, who has sat on both sides of the fence before. He’s able to share his own experiences offering insights, stories and advice gathered.
Further, Bussgang draws on interviews that he has had with successful players like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman.
He discusses getting noticed, perfecting your pitch, and negotiating partnerships that work for everyone.
Hire With Your Head: Using Performance-Based Hiring to Build Great Teams by Lou Adler
There’s nothing as important as building the right team. This book helps distill the right systems and processes throughout your company to help make sure you only bring on the best of the best.
Hire With Your Head: Using Performance-Based Hiring to Build Great Teams, outlines how to use performance-based hiring techniques and the help of the Internet to hire top candidates.
It teaches to hire applicants based on what the role requires of them to be successful in the job, rather than their qualifications. By changing the approach, you’re more likely to make better hires and reduce turnover in the long term.
The whole hiring process must be tailored to attract the best-suited candidates for the role, from advertising the role to the interview stage. Articulating how to be successful in the role is crucial.
Adler articulates the entire hiring process, including the best way to recruit the candidate and ways to interest them in the long term.
Bonus!
Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition by Jay Abraham
The most phenomenal book on marketing for small and large business alike. This book was pivotal early on in my career on learning how to build great marketing strategies and partnerships.
Author Jay Abraham is a marketing expert, who are looking for wealth creating opportunities in everyday business. He shares examples of his own that can be applied to any existing business.
The book provides examples of creatively thinking outside the box to help business. By spotting hidden assets, overlooked opportunities, and using untapped resources, it’s about looking at business in a new light.
