The Blinkist App Taught Me More Than Business School

I’ve always wanted to start my own business or manage a team. My business school education was a good starting point, but I felt like I needed more. Since I started using Blinkist a few months ago, I’ve expanded my knowledge significantly. What Blinkist gave me that business school couldn’t was the books that I needed to succeed, like the latest titles on marketing and leadership, rather than just outdated textbooks focused on theory.

For anyone thinking about a career in business, a Blinkist subscription is hands down the best investment, in my opinion.

Blinkist is an app that explains books to you in about 15 minutes. You can either read or listen to these explanations and there are 4,000 titles to choose from across 27 categories like entrepreneurship, personal development, and management and leadership.

Blinkist explains what nonfiction books are all about in 15 minutes

My friend recommended Blinkist to me as a way to read more in general, but what really caught my eye was the business-related books like The Thank You Economy, The End of Marketing and Fix This Next. The app has hundreds of bestselling books by thought leaders in the business world with information about things I’d never been taught during my degree.

I decided to give it a try and see if I could read all the book recommendations I’ve received over the years from my mentor, my colleagues, and those from big names like Bill Gates and Gary Vaynerchuk.

Within the first 15 minutes, I was sold. I was learning from top authors who have actually succeeded in the business world—and I was learning a lot! After using the app for the last few months, I’m now convinced that Blinkist is a better—and cheaper—choice for me than business school. Here’s why.

A Book Explained in 15 Minutes

The app explains what a book is about in 15 minutes. It includes all of the key lessons, without any of the fluff, so I found it a much faster way of learning new things compared to traditional lectures and to reading books in full.

For example, I read—and loved—Good to Great, which is about how companies can become great and can survive long-term, but it took me almost a month to read. When I came across the book on the app, it took 15 minutes to get Blinkist’s take on it.

Since then, I’ve been checking out business books I’ve always wanted to read, but had never gotten around to like The 4-Hour Workweek, ReWork and The Personal MBA. With Blinkist, I can actually get through all of the bestselling business books and books I’ve been recommended.

As well as business-related books, I also checked out titles I thought would teach me skills useful for working in this field. With categories like productivity, communication skills, and creativity, it wasn’t hard to find ideas. I whizzed through Atomic Habits, Getting Things Done, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in under an hour.

Blinkist Taught Me Things I Didn’t Know

Since using Blinkist, I’ve learned plenty of useful things that I never came across at school.

For example, I dove into titles on communication, leadership and management on the app. After checking out books like Radical Candor and The Languages of Leadership, I understand why my boss manages me the way she does. I also learned more about how I can interact with others at work to build better relationships and tips for having difficult conversations.

I was also able to check out topics on the app I was interested in that didn’t come up much at school, like social media marketing, and to get inspiration from biographies and memoirs of leading figures.

Learning On the Go

It took me four years to earn a degree in business administration, but with Blinkist, I’ve learned almost the same amount in a matter of weeks. It’s mostly down to how the app allows me to learn on the go, so I don’t have to sit down in a classroom.

Now I’m working full-time, I don’t have much free time to dedicate to learning, but I fit it in by multitasking and listening to Blinkist while traveling to work, in the gym and cooking and cleaning at home.

What’s more, I’ve always loved podcasts and audiobooks, but I find it hard to listen to things for hours on end, especially if I can’t skim the content. On the app, not only is the audio content in bite-sized chunks that are easy to skim, it’s engaging and uses sound effects and more than one narrator to make things fresh and interesting.

It’s Backed by Science

Now that I’ve graduated, I can’t remember much from most of my courses, but so far the things I’ve learned on Blinkist have stuck. I read online that Blinkist uses a scientific approach to make this happen.

Basically, the app uses neuroscientific techniques to make everything easy to remember. They say this includes case studies and real-life examples. I’d always found these parts of Blinkist’s explanations the most interesting, so it’s great to find out they actually help you learn, too.

For example, ask me about what I learned in the finance modules at school and I couldn’t tell you. Ask me what I learned about finance on Blinkist, and I can remember from Profit First, a book about making small businesses profitable, the story of how UPS made time and cost-cutting changes. They found that drivers wasted more time waiting at traffic lights and used more fuel when making left turns, so they told them to avoid these and this has saved them $6 million per year.

Blinkist highlights stories and examples from real-life situations

One of the World’s Best Apps

When getting a degree, most of us want to go to the most prestigious and recognizable school possible. I thought the same when it came to apps for learning. After that recommendation from a friend, I Googled Blinkist to see what they’re about. I found mentions of the app in places like The New York Times, TechCrunch and The Guardian. I also found that big names in the field like Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, are fans of the app, and that Blinkist was mentioned in Tim Ferriss’ latest book Tribe of Mentors.

Plus, most impressively, I found that the app has won awards from Google for its design, and the UN for its contribution to the education field. When I went to download it in the App Store, I found the app was in a section for “lifelong learners,” something many of us want to be. If it’s good enough for Tim Cook, Google and the UN, it’s good enough for me.

Learn from the Best

Just like how you want to choose the best possible school for a business degree, you want to learn from the best possible lecturers, but this isn’t always possible. With Blinkist, I feel like I’m being taught by thought leaders and experts in the field, and people who have actually been successful in business.

For example, there are titles from Sheryl Sandberg, Gary Vaynerchuk and Tim Ferriss. Blinkist also has curated lists with recommendations from people like Bill Gates, Arianna Huffington, and even the startup’s own CEO.

Learn from top authors and thought leaders

You Can Get Up-to-Date Knowledge

Perhaps my biggest disappointment from business school was how out-of-date everything I learned was. The business world moves fast, and degree courses take time to catch up. However, when you’re studying things like finance, management and accounting, you can’t afford to have out-of-date knowledge in the real world.

With Blinkist, I’ve been able to top up my knowledge and learn the latest best practices and new ways of doing things—basically everything they don’t teach you at business school that you really should know.

There are always new titles being added, too, so I can check out the latest bestsellers and trending titles in the field and quickly catch up on what thought leaders are saying. When I learn about something totally new to me, I can check out books that have stood the test of time as well as the most up-to-date titles on the subject.

Get up-to-date knowledge from the latest books

Customize Your Learning

For me, there’s nothing worse than being told what you have to learn. Many business degrees are rigid and there’s not much choice. With the app, you can pick and choose what you learn about and only spend time on the things that will be useful for you.

I’ve loved making a DIY crash course in things I feel I need to brush up on—like anything finance—and discover things that never came up in my degree but are valuable in the business world—like time management. The app also recommends titles based on your history, so you can always find something new in similar topics to expand your knowledge even further.

If you want to learn about business, or anything really, turn to the Blinkist app to get the best information, fast.