The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B005MM7HY8 | Format: EPUB
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Description
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.< /p>
Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.
The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning", rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product-development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.
Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 8 hours and 43 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Random House Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: September 13, 2011
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005MM7HY8
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.
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.
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