Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(107)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The title may seem over the top, but actually the implications of Eric's new book are huge. I can't remember a text in recent years that predicted such significant conclusions for society, education, and world business.

**Concepts in the book that will make your head spin:

1) Ries's Law (I'm coining this right now) - Moore's Law that states the cost of new technology will rapidly decrease thereby reducing technological risk of innovation. It's not until The Lean Startup that we realize the cost of reaching customers and thereby market risk will also rapidly decrease.

2) Entrepreneur mythology as we know it is wrong (aka Steve Jobs is not what he seems). Iconic innovators ala the founders of Apple are believed by the public to be successful because of their creative vision of the future. The Lean Startup shows that in order for founders to be successful, they must test each element of there vision against reality.

3) Demystifying startup metrics. Even in a startup mecca like NYC, few entrepreneurs understand the metrics that drive their business. Eric's Innovation Accounting paradigm will change the early-stage VC industry as we know it.


**What I like about the book:

1) Comprehensive and a pleasure to read.

2) Real world examples (case studies) from tech startups to the non-profit industry. You will not find anything like these in other books.

3) Case studies in chapters 6 & 7 alone are worth the price of the whole book.


**What I don't like:

1) The chapter titles are a bit confusing and non-descriptive.

2) I could see some savvy entrepreneurs getting bored with the beginning when there's really great content in the later chapters. But if you're new to Lean Startup, the beginning chapters are a perfect introduction for you.

3) Some of the sources are outdates. I recently checked the links at the back of the book and gotten a couple 404's, but after searching on Google was able to find the sources. (this might be fixed now, not sure)


**Final Words
As someone who is very active on the latest research into innovation and entrepreneurship as well as an long-time entrepreneur myself, I love Eric's book and think that it's going to become a true classic and stand out as THE business book to read in 2011-2012. Don't listen to the haters, just look at the reviews from people like Marc Adreesen (founder of Netscape) and Dustin Moskovitz (cofounder of Facebook), these people don't endorse you unless you you are the real deal. Eric & The Lean Startup are the real deal.

Winston Churchill once said that we can depend on the United states to do the right thing - after they have exhausted all other alternatives. The same can be said for the startup company in cutting edge fields - they have to keep trying so many different options on the various product features, target market segments, pricing, technology architecture, and so on before they hit upon the right formula. And since companies will not have the necessary resources to try out the various permutations and combinations, most of them fail before they achieve success; unless they are phenomenally lucky.

But Eric Ries in his book `The Lean Startup' shows that it doesn't have to be so. He explains that startups cannot use traditional planning an management tools because their product and customers are unknown. So, what else? Here he comes up with his Lean Startup Methodology - which is a scientific approach for creating and managing startups. Since the product and customer are not known, startups needs to develop a process of "validated learning" through which they can learn to build a sustainable business. This is different from learning through failure - which is a very expensive and wasteful process. Startups need to have a "Build-Measure-Learn" process and get continuous feedback from the market, so that they can decide whether to continue with the current plan or `pivot' into other directions. Eric shows the various ways a startup can pivot: Zoom-in pivot, Zoom-out pivot, Customer segment pivot, Customer need pivot, Platform pivot, and so on. Eric also explains how the normal metrics which he calls `vanity metrics' fail to show how a startup is performing and he comes with solutions of defining new metrics for the startup which takes into account the continuous innovation that a startup should perform. I loved the concepts of `MVP' - minimum viable product and `power of small batches' which allow companies to be agile and experiment quickly without committing too much resources.

Over the last 25 years of my career, I have been involved with over 20 startups in various capacities - Founder, Investor or Advisor. Though every startup has been a different challenge, there are many commonalities that run across them. And the doubts that plague each one of them are the same - are we doing the right thing? are we making progress? should we presevere with what we are doing or change strategy? The `Lean Startup Methodology' is an excellent tool, which I wish I had known before. It is not that some or most of the things that Eric mentions have not been executed by me or other entrepreneurs, but we lacked the scientific approach and process that would have enables us to plan and manage better.

We look at successful startups and often feel that those winners just happened to be at the right place at the right time. With many real life examples Eric shows it is not just luck. The successful ones were able to manage the startup well through many of the principles explained in the `Lean Startup Methodology' - whether consciously or not. Further, after you move past the startup phase, how do you continue to get the company to innovate and be agile? How can large companies foster entrepreneurship? Can the smart startup maintain the spirit of entrepreneurship? Eric thinks so and lays out his thoughts of how that can be achieved.

Some caveats on the book though - please note carefully how Eric defines the entrepreneur and the startup. There will be many businesses and organizational structures that will not match that. It does not mean the `Lean Startup Methodology' will not work for those - but it will have to modified and fine tuned. Similarly Eric's experiences and the examples he quotes are mostly from the high tech fields and hence the learnings may not be exactly applicable for many traditional industries. Lastly, the book assumes that the Startup is good in execution - which from my experience, is not often the case. The management team in most Startups will have many gaps - some of which they are not even aware of - which leads to serious problems as they try to execute. However there are many other books and large number of consultants who can help the startup to solve those problems.

If you are an entrepreneur or involved with a startup in any capacity - this book is a must read; you will not regret the investment of the time and cost. I commend Eric Ries for making a significant contribution to the field of scientific entrepreneurial management.

As of the writing of this review (August 2011), the US economy is still in pretty bad shape, banks aren't lending and companies are sitting on piles of cash. It's a perfect time to launch a startup, but capital is scarce. Fortunately, there are options for aspiring entrepreneurs. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (co-founder of internet company IMVU) is a great place to begin.

When I first received the book I was a little concerned that it would be more focused on brick and mortar businesses to the exclusion of internet and content type startups. However, Ries focuses on a variety of entrepreneurial situations from traditional, physical businesses to those only existent on the web. If you are operating a business or thinking about starting one, chances are Ries has addressed your situation in some capacity within the book's 290+ pages.

The Lean Startup is filled with technical information, but also interesting stories that back up the author's assertions. I like this model because it allowed me to see what he was talking about in a real world setting. I also appreciate his inclusive vision of entrepreneurship. For example, he thinks entrepreneur should be a job category in larger companies and goes on to address the needs of people who are in charge of starting new projects within big corporations.

In short, the lean startup model focuses on getting a minimum viable product to the market, then receiving customer feedback along the way to improve the product and pivot (take a new approach) if necessary. This, of course, is in contrast to the old way of doing business where a product is launched fully functional backed by extensive market research. This method can be successful, but it costs a lot of money, pivoting is difficult, and failure can harm the bottom line (think Microsoft Vista).

I'm starting my own business and found The Lean Startup incredibly helpful. It basically functions as a general "how to" book for the lean startup method. While everything wasn't equally helpful for me personally, his advice on minimum viable product, how to find the root of personnel failures, and the creation of meaningful metrics is priceless.

If you are starting a business or thinking about expanding one, I'd highly recommend this book. I know my business will be more successful because of it.

I found some ideas in the book very valuable. For example setting milestones by validated learning was new to me. So I enjoyed the anecdotes and a couple of other ideas, but you cannot help telling yourself "OK, get to the point" while reading. The problem is the book itself is not lean. I think it could have been much concise thus shorter.

My suggestion is that irrespective of your level on startups, read it very fast on the first go. If you are novice, you'll know where to come back and read more carefully, slowly. If you are a seasoned startup guru, you'll probably get what you want and be happy with the anecdotes and maybe a couple fresh ideas.

In both cases, I think there is value in the book, but you have to look for it.

I picked up this book as an entrepreneur with 2 Lean Start Ups of my own. The book title and its introduction spoke to my aspirations while the content did nothing for my situation. The author Eric Ries comes from the fast moving corporate world of technology upgrades and dot com bubbles where a business can fizzle in an instant or expand with viral ferocity. The Lean Start up concept is so common sense that the general public has had an awareness of it for the past hundred years but what Eric does is apply a language to managing those early waters. While I applaud his efforts and personal successes, he wasn't really speaking to the guy in his garage trying to make a better widget. His book comes off as more of a 273 page advertisement for huge corporations who want continue to innovate without risking their bottom line. I have no doubt that he has created a useful managerial engine for transforming a company who has gotten stuck in the mud but flowery language doesn't help the guy who just started a website, has a decent audience but can't figure out how to bring in capital.

This is book was written by person who long ago passed the start up phase and his teachings are for others who have also done the same. I think the title and introduction was a marketing attempt to capture a larger audience than the content can provide for.

If you haven't been reading any books or following blogs on entrepreneurship then you may find this to be a valuable read. If you already know about market testing, agile development methodologies, split testing, analytics and such things, then you really won't find anything new here that hasn't already been discussed for the past 5 to 10 years. In fact, I had to double-check the publication date of Sep 2011, since the book read more like a 2006-era book.

The two-star rating reflects my own personal dissatisfaction with the book since nothing new was introduced to me other than a label "The Lean Startup" which is somewhat of a misnomer. Much of the contents applies to fairly large groups either within existing organizations or as stand-alone organizations. Though some of the content applies to "2 guys in their basement", much of the content has a "larger" scope.

In the tech boom of the '90s, so-called "startups" would burn through millions of dollars of investor cash before seeing any revenue. They'd hire PR firms and launch national ad campaigns; they'd bring on big-name C-level executives; and they'd train an army of support staff--all before they had any customers. Webvan, Pets.com, eToys, and countless others whose names are now forgotten went down this path, only to find that the massive demand they'd anticipated for their services never materialized.

Investors have wised up since. Validation is the name of the game: Your concept may look good on paper, your demo may look great, but you're never going to raise more than six figures without traction--enthusiastic beta testers, active users, or best of all, revenue. Today, the word "startup" suggests a handful of people working on a small product, collecting feedback, and iterating on that feedback. Rather than launching when everything is perfect, they launch when they have a "minimal viable product" (MVP). It's an approach that's been advocated for years by startup accelerator programs like Y Combinator and TechStars. And now Eric Ries has a name for it: "The Lean Startup." He's built a whole brand around the name--including a video series, a conference, and now this book--and attracted press coverage that's described it as a "radical new theory" (Wired).

So is it new? That depends on who you are. If you're already in the startup world, most of this book will sound familiar. That's not to say that Ries' writings are useless--the book contains some solid anecdotes (though not as many as I would've liked), and many entrepreneurs are aware that they're not iterating on feedback as quickly as they could be--but it does make the repetition of the theme tedious. Small feature set, gauge customer interest, repeat as fast as possible; got it.

To avoid limiting his audience, Ries has broadened his definition of "startup" to encompass virtually any human endeavor. So if you work at a large corporation, a government agency, or a non-profit: Good news! You, too, can apply lean startup principles! Unfortunately, the book offers few tangible lessons in that arena. Yes, all else being equal, having customer validation is a good thing. But what to make of Ries' aside that the iPod rested on assumptions validated by the success of the Walkman? By that same reckoning, Apple should have looked at the web-capable smartphone market in 2005--a small niche comprised of geeky professionals--and concluded that few people would want an iPhone. Or they might have looked at tablet computers in 2007--an even smaller niche--and reckoned that no one wanted an iPad. Apple is the antithesis of the lean startup. They have the resources to make big bets and shrug when they don't pay off. Startups can't.

It's a dichotomy Ries never really gets at: When should you be lean, constantly listening to feedback and reevaluating your direction, and when should you just keep moving toward your vision? That's the fundamental question of entrepreneurship. There's no one-size-fits-all answer.

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect from The Lean Startup since I have been reading about and following the movement since 2010. What new techniques or insights was I going to read about? What had Eric learned in recent time that would be different from before? After reading the book I was very pleasantly surprised to find that above all it is a collection of success stories of companies that have put Lean Startup principles into practice. Of course, in hind sight I realized that Eric couldn't have done it any other way. If Eric was to practice what he's been preaching, then he had to put the Lean Startup principles themselves to the test, and provide ample evidence to the reader that this has shown real results (good or bad) for many companies.

The Lean Startup will help you apply the scientific method to your vision for a new business. All concepts are well presented and followed up with real examples from modern successful companies. Overall it has inspired me to think different about how I approach introducing innovation to established businesses, a necessity for survival in today's fast-paced and constantly changing economy powered by software and internet services.

Here it is! A business book you can use and get results from. This is a rare and amazing thing. I thought business books produced by mainstream publishers were all about fads and restating obvious facts with the latest and greatest jargon. Lucky for us all, there are a few islands of original and practical ideas in this vast sea of trendy nonsense. This is one of them.

In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries borrows heavily from Steven Blank's groundbreaking ideas (presented not-so-eloquently in the Four Steps to the Epiphany, which is worth reading multiple times despite its editorial deficiencies). He massages the concepts of minimum viable product and rapid iteration into a full-scale entrepreneurial program which can be implemented as you read along. If you do your footwork and not just your homework, by the last page you should know whether your Next Best Thing is going to do what you want it to, and what it will actually look like once people start buying it and giving you their opinions. Every assumption you have, from who your customer is to what they really want and how much they'll pay for it, will be dragged out of your garage and forced to face reality. This alone is the reason why many people who read this book will never actually use it. Illusions are too comfortable for many people to give up.

I would highly recommend this book along with Steven Blank's book (here's hoping for a cleaner, leaner version in the near future). Ash Maurya's book is extremely useful as well (currently available as an ebook from his website). Together, these three form the holy trinity of innovation and startup education. But the toll on your ego will be heavy, for your awesome product and service ideas are going to take a beating. If you're willing to get in the ring and do battle, then buy this book and prepare to meet your market!

After reading Clayton Christensen, Geoffrey Moore and Steve Blank, I was expecting a lot from The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. I was disappointed. It could be that I did not read it well or too fast, but I was expecting much more. But instead of saying what I did not like, let me begin with the good points. Just like the previous three authors, Ries shows that innovation may be totally counterintuitive: "My cofounders and I are determined to make new mistakes. We do everything wrong. We build a minimum viable product, an early product that is terrible, full of bugs and crash-your-computer-yes-really stability problems. Then we ship it to customers before it's ready. And we charge money for it. After securing initial customers, we change the product constantly. [...] We really had customers, often talked to them and did not do what they said." [page 4] On page 8, Eric Ries explains that the lean startup method helps entrepreneurs "under conditions of extreme uncertainty" with a "new kind of management" by "testing each element of their vision", and "learn whether to pivot or persevere" using a "feedback loop".

This is he Build-Measure-Learn process. He goes on by explaining why start-ups fail:
1- The first problem is the allure of a good plan. "Planning and forecasting are only accurate when based on a long, stable operating history and a relatively static environment. Startups have neither."
2- The second problem is the "Just-do-it". "This school believes that chaos is the answer. This does not work either. A startup must be managed".
The main and most convincing lesson from Ries is that because start-ups face a lot of uncertainty, they should test, experiment, learn from the right or wrong hypotheses as early and as often as possible. They should use actionable metrics, split-test experiments, innovation accounting. He is also a big fan of Toyota lean manufacturing.

I loved his borrowing of Komisar's Analogs and Antilogs. For the iPod, the Sony Walkman was an Analog ("people listen to music in a public place using earphones") and Napster was an Antilog ("although people were willing to download music, they were not willing to pay for it"). [Page 83] Ries further develops the MVP, Minimum Viable Product: "it is not the smallest product imaginable, but the fastest way to get through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop." Apple's original iPhone, Google's first search engine, or even Dropbox Video Demo were such MVPs. More on Techcrunch [page 97]. He adds that MVP does not go without risks, including legal issues, competition, branding and morale of the team. He has a good point about intellectual property [page 110]: "In my opinion, [...the] current patent law inhibits innovation and should be remedied as a matter of public policy."

So why did I feel some frustration? There is probably the feeling Ries gives that his method is a science. [Page 3]: "Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught." [Page 148]: "Because of the scientific methodology that underlies the Lean Startup, there is often a misconception that it offers a rigid clinical formula for making pivot or persevere decisions. There is no way to remove the human element - vision, intuition, judgment - from the practice of entrepreneurship, nor that would be desirable". I was probably expecting more recipes, as the ones Blnak gives in The Four Steps to the Epiphany. So? Art or science? Ries explains on page 161 that pivot requires courage. "First, Vanity Metrics can allow to form false conclusions. [...] Second, an unclear hypothesis makes it impossible to experience complete failure, [...] Third, many entrepreneurs are afraid. Acknowledging failure can lead to dangerously low morale." A few pages before (page 154), he writes that "failure is a prerequisite to learning". Ries describes a systematic method, I am not sure it is a science, not even a process. Indeed, in his concluding chapter, as if he wanted to mitigate his previous arguments, he tends to agree: "the real goal of innovation: to learn that which is currently unknown" [page 275]. "Throughout our celebration of the Lean Startup movement, a note of caution is essential. We cannot afford to have our success breed a new pseudoscience around pivots, MVPs, and the like" [page 279]. This in no way diminishes the traditional entrepreneurial virtues; the primacy of vision, the willingness to take bold risks, and the courage required in the face of overwhelming odds" [page 278].

Let me mention here a video from Komisar. Together with Moore and Blank, he is among the ones who advise reading Ries' book. I am less convinced than them about the necessity to read this book. I have now more questions than answers, but this may be a good sign! I have been more frustrated than enlightened by the anecdotes he gives or his use of the Toyota strategy. In na interview given to the Stanford Venture Technology program, Komisar talks about how to teach entrepreneurship. Listen to him! To be fair, Eric Ries is helping a lot the entrepreneurship movement. I just discovered a new set of videos he is a part of, thanks to SpinkleLab. Fred Destin had also a great post on his blog about the Lean Startup and you should probably read it too to build your own opinion. Lean is hard and (generally) good for you. Fred summaries Lean this way and he is right: "In the real world, most companies do too much development and spend too much money too early (usually to hit some pre-defined plan that is nothing more than a fantasy and / or is not where they need to go to succeed) and find themselves with an impossible task of raising money at uprounds around Series B. So founders get screwed and everyone ends up with a bad taste in their mouth. That's fundamentally why early stage capital efficiency should matter to you, and why you should at least understand lean concepts."

Let me finish with a recent interview given by Steve Blank in Finland: "I have devoted the last decade of my life and my "fourth career" to trying to prove that methods for improving entrepreneurial success can be taught. Entrepreneurship itself is more of a genetic phenomenon. Either you have the passion and drive to start something, or you don't. I believe entrepreneurs are artists, and I'd like to quote George Bernard Shaw to illustrate: "Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not." Over the last decade we assumed that once we found repeatable methodologies (Agile and Customer Development, Business Model Design) to build early stage ventures, entrepreneurship would become a "science," and anyone could do it. I'm beginning to suspect this assumption may be wrong. It's not that the tools are wrong. Where I think we have gone wrong is the belief that anyone can use these tools equally well. When page-layout programs came out with the Macintosh in 1984, everyone thought it was going to be the end of graphic artists and designers. "Now everyone can do design," was the mantra. Users quickly learned how hard it was do design well and again hired professionals. The same thing happened with the first bit-mapped word processors. We didn't get more or better authors. Instead we ended up with poorly written documents that looked like ransom notes. Today's equivalent is Apple's "Garageband". Not everyone who uses composition tools can actually write music that anyone wants to listen to. It may be we can increase the number of founders and entrepreneurial employees, with better tools, more money, and greater education. But it's more likely that until we truly understand how to teach creativity, their numbers are limited. Not everyone is an artist, after all."