The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses [Paperback]

If many more European start-up founders had read this book we might have more successful start-ups. That said, as of 2011 we ARE beginning to get a lot of more switched on, more product focused entrepreneurs starting companies. That can only be good.

I would recommend without question, reading this book. Many of the recommendations inside are ones I have learned the hard way; but even having said this, the urge for any engineer remains to build functionality and that is a dangerous route if you don't know what your customer or user wants.

Based upon the premise of "assumptions" that we all make, this book gives a convincing -and in my view correct- case for finding ways to prove your assumptions before you build a real product - by hook or by crook. That might mean a skeleton site, a video, a very basic minimum product.

Whether you are running a start-up in a corporate as a division or a traditional bootstrap in a garage, I challenge you not to find some value in this book if you are an early stage company which has not already burnt it's way through all it's money. Read this book before you do and build the right thing, not the wrong thing, for your users or customers.

"Now Moses wrote down the starting points of their journeys at the command of the LORD." - Numbers 33:2 (NKJV)

Having taught entrepreneurs for many years and studied many of the most successful ones, I am always struck by how differences in focus on learning seem to correlate with achieving more or less success. Those who believe that they just need to implement their business plan usually flop. Those, by contrast, who assume they don't know the "right" answer . . .but desperately want to find out . . . seem to do quite well.

My favorite saying about entrepreneurs is that their first business model is their worst one. Fail quickly, often, and inexpensively in seeking a better business model, and you will eventually find a profitable business model and offerings.

While this book covers lean operations as well as business model and offering development, I thought that its main value comes in the example of how a Web-based business should measure its performance and monitor how well potential improvements work out. If you have such a business, the book's contents are directly applicable by you.

If you want to apply the book's lessons to a different kind of business, you'll find the information here to be more difficult to apply.

I believe that this book will be most helpful to those who haven't tried to start a business before and are accustomed to making incremental improvements in existing, successful businesses.

If you already understand the importance of measuring performance in creating trial, turning trial into regular purchases, and regular purchases into loyalty to a product or service, you will probably wonder what all the fuss is about. In that regard, pay attention to Mr. Ries' ideas about how minimal an offering you can put together to test.

The book's biggest drawback is that Mr. Ries doesn't give very many clues about what to test if the current program isn't working. As such, his approach lacks enough depth to totally guide a startup to success.

Eric Ries is an extraordinary entrepreneur. The innovative way in which he has launched The Lean Startup itself is testament to his incredible creativity and energy.

Anyone, whether they are in technology or any other sector, who is involved in product development, should read this book, make sure that everyone in their team has read this book and then argued over a beer about whether it applies to them. Not everyone will agree with everything he says, no doubt some people will think they know better, good luck to them.

Some people will rail against the use of terms like, 'Pivot', that Eric uses to describe the (entirely rational) process of discovering the market for a startup. Pivot runs the risk of being the most misunderstood and overused term in startup land as it has become a euphemisim for all sorts of things including, 'failed', 'given up' or 'lost interest'. It is hardly Eric's fault however that he has created and popularised a concept that powerful.

Having been involved in successful and unsuccessful startups, and unsuccessful projects in large corporations, Eric has invested an obscene amount of his time and effort into working out why there is so much wasted effort in product development. More importantly, he has come up with a very plausible hypothesis for a better way of doing things better. Measurably better.

I do have a big problem with this book and some of the language in it.

To quote Eric Ries, "So here's my definition of a startup. A human institution designed to create something new under conditions of extreme uncertainity. And, of course, the importance of disruptive innovation in creating something that is truly different than what came before."

For my money, that is not the definition of a startup. That is the definition of an inventor, an innovator, a startup, any business unit, product management team or organisation in the world.

Why not apply that definition to another entity?

"So here's my definition of Apple. A human institution designed to create something new under conditions of extreme uncertainity. And, of course, the importance of disruptive innovation in creating something that is truly different than what came before."

Apple is the largest corporation in the world. Doesn't the definition apply equally well?

And that is the essence of my problem with this book. It is keeping some extraordinary insights into how you can make things that people love in the world of startups. Grownups need to read this. They might sneer at the concept of a pivot, it is an overused term. I can't think of a single organisation that wouldn't benefit from the concept of minimum viable product though. The world would be a better place if big corporations understood this. They will waste less money making stuff people don't want.

Kindle version: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Hard cover version: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses