Personally I like to live my life surrounded by the best of everything. The best gadgets, the best project management suites, the best startups, and the best girlfriends. How do I constantly find the best in everything? I read a lot, a lot of the best blogs in the industry as well as plenty of magazines, TV, and people watching.

I like to live my life by benchmarking the rest of the world and finding a way to best them by just 1 iota. If we can build a startup that is just slightly better than the rest of the music industry, then we will have a success. If my startup blog is just a bit better than my competition, I’ll get more readers, more advertisers, and I’ll sleep happier. Growing up, I didn’t understand my parents’ fascination with A&E Biography. Why do I want to hear about these other people’s lives, I would think.. But then I realized, if you can find a similarity between yourself and these great people, you can learn to do what they did, but better — because you’re hearing what mistakes they made, and can watch out for them as you propel forward in your career and life.

Now that all of the motivational talk is out of the way, let’s get to the real good stuff. If we’re building a startup, shouldn’t we be reading startup blogs to learn from fellow entrepreneurs? Here is my shortlist of 10 startup blogs you can’t NOT read.

Top 9 Startup Blogs for …Startup Entrepreneurs

OnStartups
As a professional geek I used to work in a reasonably fun job doing what I liked to do (write code). Eventually, I got a little frustrated with it all so at the ripe old age of 24, I started my first software company. It did pretty well. It got a bunch of awards, attracted a bunch of smart people, reached millions of dollars of sales and was ultimately sold for millions of more dollars to a much larger technology company. Since then, I’ve started more companies, invested in a few and advised a few more.

AndrewHyde.net
My name is Andrew Hyde, and I am a startup junkie. You are an enabler. Stop it. I am trying to quit. This is my personal site where I share my thoughts about startups, communities, coffee, my current residence in Boulder, Colorado and the great company who I work for, TechStars. I have founded 4 companies, including Startup Weekend and VCwear.

How to Change the World – Guy Kawasaki
I am a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures and co-founder of Nononina (the owner of Alltop.com and Truemors.com). I am also a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, I was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. I’ve authored eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. I have a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Florida Venture Blog
A running perspective on Florida’s growing tech and venture community, with an occasional detour to the Southeast/national scene, venture capital FAQs and maybe a gadget or two….By Dan Rua, Managing Partner of Inflexion Partners — “Florida’s Venture Fund”.

Calacanis.com
Hello. My name is Jason.
I’m the CEO of Mahalo.com, a human powered search engine. I was previously the co-founder of Weblogs, Inc. with Brian Alvey, and the GM of Netscape. I’m currently on the board of social shopping site ThisNext. You might remember me from my days as editor and CEO of the Silicon Alley Reporter magazine.

Union Square Ventures
My name is Fred Wilson.
I am a VC. I have been for 19 years. I help people start and build technology companies. I do it in NYC, which isn’t the easiest place to build technology companies, but its getting better.
I love my work. I am the Managing Partner of two venture capital firms, Flatiron Partners and Union Square Ventures.
I also am a husband and a father of 3 kids. I do that in NYC too. And it isn’t the easiest place to raise a family either. But it’s getting better too. I love my family more than my work.
I also love music, art, yoga, biking, skiing, and golf. That’s a lot of interests for a guy who works 70 hours a week and loves his family. But I manage to make it work.

Young Go Getter
YGG began as a small forum back in August of 2005. It was originally created as an alternative to the other entrepreneur forums available at that time. Since then, it’s grown into a large community of young go getters spread across the globe. It’s no longer just a forum. It’s exactly what our tagline says it is, the business playground for entrepreneurs young at heart.

Go Big Network
I’m a serial entrepreneur that’s started 9 companies – Go BIG is my current gig. Some of my companies have done really well and some have failed quickly. I’m an author and a nationally syndicated columnist on starting companies. I absolutely love starting companies.

YourSite
If you’re reading this blog, you’re on the right track. Now all you have to do is take the initiative and start now. None of the authors in this list started with an amazing blog, they started off small, made a lot of mistakes, and now are wildly successful.

Let us know if I missed any and once “yoursite” is ready, let us know!