Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works (Lean Series) 2nd Edition

by Ash Maurya (Author)

712 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-1449305178

ISBN-10: 9781449305178

Why is ISBN important?

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Share <Embed>

Condition: Used - Very Good

In Stock. Sold by AZ Books & Gifts, Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

51 Used from $10.50

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.

Deliver to France

Turn on 1-Click ordering

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

This item ships to France. Want it Friday, Oct. 12? Order within and choose AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping at checkout. Learn more

List Price: $24.99
Save: $8.27 (33%)

49 New from $11.13

Deliver to France

Turn on 1-Click ordering

More Buying Choices

49 New from $11.13 51 Used from $10.50

100 used & new from $10.50

See All Buying Options

Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student

We live in an age of unparalleled opportunity for innovation. We're building more products than ever before, but most of them fail--not because we can't complete what we set out to build, but because we waste time, money, and effort building the wrong product.
What we need is a systematic process for quickly vetting product ideas and raising our odds of success. That's the promise of Running Lean.

In this inspiring book, Ash Maurya takes you through an exacting strategy for achieving a "product/market fit" for your fledgling venture, based on his own experience in building a wide array of products from high-tech to no-tech. Throughout, he builds on the ideas and concepts of several innovative methodologies, including the Lean Startup, Customer Development, and bootstrapping.

Running Lean is an ideal tool for business managers, CEOs, small business owners, developers and programmers, and anyone who's interested in starting a business project.

Find a problem worth solving, then define a solution
Engage your customers throughout the development cycle
Continually test your product with smaller, faster iterations
Build a feature, measure customer response, and verify/refute the idea
Know when to "pivot" by changing your plan's course
Maximize your efforts for speed, learning, and focus
Learn the ideal time to raise your "big round" of funding

"If you are starting a company, or want to adopt the Lean Startup approach, Running Lean is a must read."

- Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundary Group

Frequently bought together

+

Total price: $38.34

These items are shipped from and sold by different sellers. Show details

Buy the selected items together

This item:Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works (Lean Series) by Ash Maurya Hardcover $16.72
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future by Leonard A. Schlesinger Hardcover $21.62
In stock.
Ships from and sold by allnewbooks.
$3.99 shipping

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Leonard A. Schlesinger

71

Hardcover
$21.62
Ash Maurya

136

Hardcover
$20.40
Eric Ries

2,424

in Lean Management
Hardcover
148 offers from $7.94
Nathan R. Furr

94

Paperback
$24.95
Steve Blank

210

Hardcover
$25.09
Steve Blank

295

Hardcover
$27.87

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Neel Mehta

Authored by Product Managers at Google and Facebook, Swipe to Unlock is the international bestseller which breaks down how the tech world works.

94

Paperback
$19.98
Feedback

Rob Kornblum

It's time to break free from your day job. Start your own business. Do you have an idea? This book tell you how. Pick up your copy today.

41

Kindle Edition
$7.99
Feedback

Anik Singal

After selling $200 Million in products & Teaching 250,000+ Entrepreneurs - Anik Singal reveals the Exact 4 Steps to Succeeding as an Entrepreneur!

313

Paperback
$12.59
Feedback

Rob Walling

This book is your blueprint to getting your startup off the ground with no outside investment.

90

Kindle Edition
$9.99
Feedback

Mike van Drongelen

Paperback
$39.99
Feedback

Mark Graban

11

Just Released

Kindle Edition
$9.99
Feedback

Penny Zenker

Great stories and practical tips to help you overcome stress, distractions and procrastination to get the right stuff done.

22

Kindle Edition
$8.99

From the Publisher


	Lean Analytics	Lean Enterprise	Lean UX	UX for Lean Startups	Lean Customer Development	Lean Branding
Find further titles in this series	Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster	How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale	Designing Great Products with Agile Teams	Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design	Building Products Your Customers Will Buy	Creating Dynamic Brands to Generate Conversion

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Ash has put together a book I wish I'd read before pursuing my own startup. The level of detail, including case studies and practical applications, make this book a resource worthy of sitting on every aspiring entrepreneur's shelf."

-Rand Fishkin, CEO and Cofounder, SEOmoz; Coauthor, The Art of SEO

"Ash has laid out a clear compass for anyone to validate their ideas, solve real problems and create a successful business. I'd encourage this book to anyone trying to get a business off the ground."

- Noah Kagan, Chief Sumo of AppSumo.com

"Lean concepts are exciting but it's hard to know what to actually do. Ash not only gives advice but makes it practicable--this is the first comprehensive guidebook for how to execute a Lean Startup."

- Jason Cohen, founder of WP Engine & Smart Bear.

"Ash provides compelling, actionable guidance for applying lean principles to a startup. His startup canvas changed the way I think about my own startup. This book is a valuable guide whether you are a serial entrepreneur or a first time founder."

- Sean Ellis, Founder & CEO of CatchFree

"Easily one of the best technical books on Lean Startup ever written. Period. End of point. Done."

- Dan Martell, Founder of Clarity.fm & Angel Investor

About the Author

Ash Maurya (@ashmaurya) is the founder of USERcycle. Since bootstrapping his last company seven years ago, he has launched five products and one peer-to-web application framework. Throughout this time he has been in search of better, faster ways for building successful products. Ash has more recently been rigorously applying Customer Development and Lean Startup techniques to his products, which he frequently writes about on his blog and turned into a book: Running Lean.

Ash resides in Austin, Texas, with his wife, two children and two dogs.

Product details

Series: Lean Series
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 2 edition (March 9, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781449305178
ISBN-13: 978-1449305178
ASIN: 1449305172
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 712 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #19,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5 in Books > Textbooks > Business & Finance > Business Development
- #7 in Books > Textbooks > Business & Finance > Entrepreneurship
- #8 in Books > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Quality Control & Management > Lean

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Related media

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Beth Cabrera

13

Paperback
$16.10
Feedback

Rob Walling

This book is your blueprint to getting your startup off the ground with no outside investment.

90

Kindle Edition
$9.99
Feedback

Karen Gurney

Dominate in your career. Identify your strengths. Find jobs with high income potential. Double Your Job Interviews.

41

Kindle Edition
$4.99
Feedback

Jeff Hyman

Not hitting your numbers? Unsatisfied employees causing a toxic environment for everyone? Recruit Rockstars gives you a process to turn things around

57

Kindle Edition
$0.99
Feedback

Natasha Hazlett

Get Ready to Discover Your Mission, Spread Your Message and Make a Meaningful Difference In the World!

148

Kindle Edition
$9.99
Feedback

Mehta, PhD, Kumar

Forget everything you think you know about innovation and let The Innovation Biome revolutionize your company.

16

Paperback
$18.81
Feedback

Cliff Lerner

Genius PR hacks and secret viral tactics we used to grow our startup to 100 million users.

111

Paperback
$13.65

Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars

Write a customer review

See all 712 customer reviews

By customer groups

Startups fans

5.0 out of 5 stars

Entrepreneurship fans

4.8 out of 5 stars

Running fans

4.9 out of 5 stars

Is this feature helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

A Handbook on How to Increase Your Chances of Success with a Business Idea While Eliminating Waste

February 5, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I really liked this book. There's not a lot of fluff (which makes sense since it's a book on being lean), and it gives good examples and steps to help you apply the teachings. What it reminds me of is the Agile methodology because the main concept was about moving in smaller iterations, getting quicker feedback, and adjusting accordingly.

In terms of business and start-ups, the underlying theme to me was that you should try not to assume that you're correct - instead create small tests where you roll out an idea in small increments and test them before advancing. In some respect, it sounds like so much common sense, but how often do we fail to do this.

Old school business involves creating grandiose business plans that are complete and researched/analyzed using a ton of time. However, encapsulated within that is a lot of assumptions. How do you know such and such will happen? How do you know that customer feedback won't take you in a completely different direction? How can you possibly plan for that alternate direction if you haven't received enough feedback yet?

It's difficult predict what people will value, and how much they will value it until they actually have to pay for it (or at least use it). So how do you get to the point where you know exactly how much a customer will value your product/service with the least amount of waste? Are you being flexible enough to allow a 180 degree turn if you find that the customer will value something else than you originally planned for (and that you have the expertise to do)?

One important point Maurya makes early on is that money is not the only form of waste. Just as important are things like your time and energy. Why spend time and energy on things that won't add value?

The book gives you steps on how to incrementally roll out your idea and constantly test it as you go, down to the level of who you should be getting feedback from, how much time to spend interviewing them, and what questions to ask them.

9 people found this helpful10 people found this helpful

Less practical than Nail it Then Scale It, but a worthwhile complement

February 7, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I'll begin my summary by quoting the author's promise: "Running Lean is a repeatable, actionable process for building products, one that raises your odds for success by helping your identify your success metrics and measure progress against those metrics."

At a high-level, the Running Lean framework is fairly straightforward: validate the problem. Define a solution. Validate the solution. Then develop your solution iteratively while continuing to test and validate along the way. Running Lean offers concrete, actionable instructions and templates for each step of this process.

However, the greatest flaw in this book is hinted in the language of the author's promise. Running Lean is designed more like an algorithm -- painfully detailed, comprehensive, and unemotional -- than a practical field guide for the real world. The book delves into everything from landing page design to kanban boards. In other words, in its attempt at engineering a comprehensive framework for business creation, Running Lean fails to deliver a strong set of core principles (I will revisit this later in my summary).

Another problem I have with the author's promise is that the word "metrics" is mentioned twice, when in actuality Running Lean incorporates very few metrics. In fact, it's not until the very last stage of that actual numbers are even mentioned (eg. Sean Ellis test, 40% customer retention). I found incongruence in the fact that Running Lean was characterized as algorithmic, but was largely based on qualitative experiments without discussion of potential quantitative benchmarks or test methodologies.

Since *Running Lean* is considered the de-facto field manual for Lean Startup methodology, I was eager to read it and compare it to Nail It then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation, which I had read previously.

At a high level, NISI and Running Lean prescribe very similar methodologies. However, where Running Lean stumbles, NISI's shines. NISI's focus on simplicity makes it far more powerful and practical. For example, as a first step, NISI focuses _only_ on pain whereas Running Lean starts off with a lean canvas, which forces you to simultaneously consider other parts of the business model. NISI's "less is more" approach proves more effective, because as formulaic and well-engineered as Running Lean tries to be, the reality is that starting a company is stressful and unpredictable.

Another example of unnecessary complexity is useless jargon like "iteration meta-pattern" and "build-measure-learn loop", as well as tangential topics like usability testing, Kanban boards or an annoyingly complex definition of risk: "the way you quantify risk in your business model is by quantifying the probabilities of a specific outcome along with quantifying the associated loss if you're wrong." As a result of its complexity, the milestones in Running Lean are less concrete and powerful than NISI. NISI does a better job painting a holistic picture of common entrepreneurial fallacies, and how to breakthrough them by focusing on the most important goal -- acquiring payed customers.

I also want to highlight two methodological differences between NISI and Running Lean:

1) NISI gets you in front of customers faster. The Lean Canvas is simple, but it seems like the entire exercise should hinge on the customer pain being validated first. That gets entrepreneurs in front of customers faster, which in turn helps save time and wasted energy on the subsequent steps.

2) NISI recommends an objective, quantitative testing method for initially validating the customer pain, whereas Running Lean uses customer interviews. I would argue that as a whole, NISI approaches the startup process more objectively while Running Lean bases it on customer interviews.

Overall, I believe Running Lean is a worthwhile complement to NISI in bits and pieces. Specifically, I found its structured customer interview templates, advice on establishing pricing, and mention of the "Sean Ellis Test" to be valuable and actionable.

53 people found this helpful54 people found this helpful

Massive value for the price

July 24, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Ratings are always a very subjective thing - the value derived depends on one's experience and previous knowledge in the space and given i'm not short of the latter i'd say it's a 4 star, i'm not trying to belittle the book - for many, it no doubt qualifies as a five.

In short, the book is insightful and brings one up to speed with the ever changing sense of urgency with which new s/w products releases need to be managed to maximize limited resources and efficacy - how to qualify if a product/business addresses a real customer need, given that actually building new apps or s/w is extremely easy with today's build tools and cost effective outsourcing. It presents a structured approach to covering all the bases in a logical and systematic manner to achieving one's goal.

A must read for anyone thinking of creating a new product/business for the first time - and recommend it to professionals needing to come up to speed with the times in s/w product/business releases.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

If you're an entrepreneur or thinking about it, read this book

November 8, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

If you read one book on entrepreneurship, let this be it. It summarizes a lot of the 'best' ideas in entrepreneurship (Steve Blank, Eric Ries, others) and gives you a very practical guide to getting started. At one point in the past, it would have been possible to 'push' a product onto users. Now, unless you are a company like Apple it is almost impossible. There are thousands of other start-ups that will do what you do AND listen to users.

The idea of systematically de-risking your business idea is a powerful way to get up and running with the smallest amount of money possible. If you have a business idea but you're not sure whether it's viable, Ash will give you a step by step plan for bringing it from the canvas to making money.

As another positive, the author seems to genuinely be interested in engaging with people who read the book. If this book doesn't answer a question you have, you could probably ask him. That's pretty good value for a book.

2 people found this helpful3 people found this helpful

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works (Lean Series)

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works (Lean Series)

Set up a giveaway

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Eric Ries

2,424

in Lean Management
Hardcover
148 offers from $7.94
Steve Blank

295

Hardcover
$27.87
Steve Blank

210

Hardcover
$25.09
Ash Maurya

136

Hardcover
$20.40
Alistair Croll

117

Hardcover
$28.18
Cindy Alvarez

41

Paperback
$22.99

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: innovation management, from the ashes, startup company, startup idea

English United States

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Interest-Based Ads
© 1996-2018, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates