Disciplined EntrepreneurshipBill Aulet
Disciplined Entrepreneurship
by Bill Aulet · first published 2013
16mentions
11recommended by
16HN commenters
2014–2026first – last mentioned
69% recommend25% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Step-by-step guide to building a startup, focusing on product conceptualization and testing whether an idea can be monetized. It is actionable and suited to founders with idea-stage questions.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…flaky, and it might be painful to access, but you'll be able to find access to buy and download books relatively easily. Three recommendations, aside from the above which I enjoyed a lot. Bill Aulet: Disciplined Entrepreneurship, covers the topic very well and generously references everything else. The Circle by Dave Eggers paints a picture that's creepily familiar already. League of Denial will have you shake your head gently…
on “Ask HN: What should I save for offline reading during 5 weeks without Internet?” ↗Back in the days, I enjoyed reading "disciplined entrepreneurship". Here's a presentation by the author that gives you a general idea http://businessofsoftware.org/2015/07/bill-aulet-mit-lessons...
on “Humble Book Bundle, Start a Startup by Wiley” ↗Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet. He’s actually had a couple of exits which can’t be said for most authors in the space.
on “My startup validation process” ↗Highly recommend Micro Conf videos. Adam Wathan & Jason Cohen are some great ones to start with. Rob's (above poster) podcasts are often very good as well. Disciplined Entrepreneurship books by Bill Aulet & his online courses (on either EdX or Coursera) are great. Tons of other great amazing info, but incorporating your first business & talking to potential customers is an absolute…
on “Ask HN: How do I learn more about entrepreneurship/startups?” ↗Disciplined Entrepreneurship, by Bill Aulet. A very condensed video version is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtWexnfPhKk.
on “Ask HN: What books helped you in your entrepreneurship journey?” ↗It's a good idea to improve your web developer skills, but I think the problem lies within your entrepreneur skills. I'd highly recommend the book Disciplined Entrepreneurship to you. It consists of 24 steps that is focused on product conceptualization, which I think you'll pretty much appreciate it.
on “Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?” ↗…professionals with the needed skills, equipment, or supplies? Or who can't access them when they are needed. I would strongly recommend you take a look at this book if you haven't already: https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Su... The book is quite awesome and there are two EdX courses that go with it that I'd also recommend: They are called Entrepreneurship 101 and 102. See: https://www.edx.org/course/entrepreneurship-101-who-customer...…
on “Ask HN: Any good post-grad ideas for an MD wanting to do more tech stuff?” ↗Sure. I like Hello, Startup by Brikman and Zero to One by Thiel and follow Y Combinator's content on YouTube. I also love Disciplined Entrepreneurship - the book used in MIT's Entrepreneurship 101, 102 & 103 courses. There's a corresponding workbook, too. A lot of this stuff is subjective, though. That's the stuff that has proven useful to me, personally,…
on “Ask HN: Best business advice for software developers” ↗Since no one mentioned it so far I’m happy to recommend “Disciplined Entrepreneurship”, which I found more useful than Eric Ries’ book and very actionable. And above all, it really is a step by step guide: http://disciplinedentrepreneurship.com/
on “Ask HN: Is there a step-by-step guide on how to create a successful startup?” ↗https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Su... Give this a read. Literally a step by step to get a successful company off the ground.
on “Ask HN: Quitting Job to Launch a Startup” ↗For anyone else who, like me, is prone to the excitement of new company ideas and has a tendency to gloss over questions like "is it even possible to monetize this?" I'd recommend reading Disciplined Entrepreneurship. It's not the One True Way but the steps they recommend cover a lot of questions that you should think about during the process.
on “When good ideas make bad business” ↗http://www.detoolbox.com Based on the “Disciplined Entrepreneurship” book and framework used by Bill Aulet, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, DEToolbox is a set of checklists and tools to help you stay on track, and grow a healthy…
on “Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it cool? (February 2014)” ↗Great books on entrepreneurship tend to assume a for-profit venture (like Aulet's Disciplined Entrepreneurship) while popular books aimed specifically at nonprofits feel primarily motivational. It's not difficult mentally translating the former books into nonprofit terms but curious if there are great books specifically…
on “Ask HN: Book recommendations for a nonprofit startup?” ↗…from the principle of product, users, traction. This is sort of scaffolding around that. It's not entirely insane to try to formalize this process - there already are books that do this (Bill Aulet, Disciplined entrepreneurship). "nor does it make sense for society to have people founding businesses at a scale" Maybe not at scale of moving lawns but I'm pretty sure the world is full of nichces that still lack specific software…
on “The founder's playbook: Building an AI-native startup” ↗I would follow the steps in Disciplined Entrepreneurship, which I've just started reading, after seeing it recommended multiple times, here and elsewhere. https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Su...
on “Ask HN: How would you validate an idea for SaaS product?” ↗