Reading list

About this list  

This is a collection of sites and articles which we’ve found to be invaluable over the years. You may already be aware of many of the sources below, but hopefully there are some here which are new to you.

As we said on Thursday, do feel free to get in touch with us if you would like any advice/help in future.

Paul Farnell – paul@salted.com
David Smalley – david@davidsmalley.com

Litmus

Sites and articles  

News

Robert Scoble’s Link Blog : Tech news highlights. This guy is very good at spotting trends.
TechCrunch: Worth keeping an eye on to watch for new things launching, but bear in mind everything’s hyped up a bit.
Apps Mania: A nice visual list of new web applications which have launched.

Business

It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be: Inspirational little book from a retired British advertising man. Aimed at young people choosing their careers.
Getting Real: This is a book by 37signals covering their ideas about web application development, doing business online, and so on. Essential reading. Bonus: you can read it free online.
Reboot conference: We mentioned this at our talk. Inspirational.
Vitamin business articles: Articles and practical advice from people running web businesses.
Paul Graham’s essays: This guy’s stuff is slightly controversial at times. He has some interesting ideas about money and business, with particular reference to software companies and start ups.
Joel on Software: Joel Spolsky runs a software company in New York City and is an excellent writer on the topic of software sales and the tech business.
Signal vs. Noise: The blog of 37signals, who we’ve been very inspired by.
Founders at Work: A book telling the stories of famous tech companies’ early days.
Seth Godin’s blog: This guy is somewhat of a marketing “guru” – definitely worth following.
Business of Software forum: There’s often some interesting threads here, and the community is very helpful. Focussed more on selling software (rather than web-based) products, but often the advice applies to a wide range of businesses.
Ask the Wizard: The guy who runs FeedBurner answers questions about business and investment.
Moo: This is the company who make our business cards.
Web App Autopsy and Figures: Two fascinating pieces uncovering the real numbers behind some popular web applications.

Web design / freelancing

A beginner’s guide to freelancing: An incredibly detailed guide to setting up a freelance business. Bonus: It’s from a UK perspective too.
CSS Beauty: Examples of particularly good web design.
FreelanceSwitch: Very useful resource for freelancers.

Personal resources  

In case they are also of interest, we’ve included some of our own personal RSS subscriptions and bookmarks.