The lean product playbook
by Dan Olsen · first published 2015
92% recommend8% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A practical guide to finding product-market fit through minimum viable products and rapid customer feedback. It suits newcomers to product management and founders moving from zero to product-market fit.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"The missing manual on how to apply Lean Startup to build products that customers love The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a startup or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice. The Lean Startup movement has contributed new and valuable ideas about product development and has generated lots of excitement. However, many companies have yet to succ
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2015–2025User Story Mapping
Jeff Patton
Recommended by 5 · mentioned by 85 recommend · 8 mention5 recommend · 85 recommend
2016–2022Sprint
Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz
Recommended by 8 · mentioned by 138 recommend · 13 mention8 recommend · 138 recommend
Shape Up
Ryan Singer
Recommended by 5 · mentioned by 85 recommend · 8 mention5 recommend · 85 recommend
2009–2023Inspired
Marty Cagan
Recommended by 42 · mentioned by 4742 recommend · 47 mention42 recommend · 4742 recommend
Lean B2B
Étienne Garbugli
Recommended by 5 · mentioned by 65 recommend · 6 mention5 recommend · 65 recommend
2019–2025What You Do Is Who You Are
Ben Horowitz
Recommended by 7 · mentioned by 107 recommend · 10 mention7 recommend · 107 recommend
2020–2024The Right It
Alberto Savoia
Recommended by 9 · mentioned by 99 recommend · 9 mention9 recommend · 99 recommend
2018–2025Radical Focus
Christina R Wodtke
Recommended by 7 · mentioned by 97 recommend · 9 mention7 recommend · 97 recommend
A list of books I posted in another thread: * Steve Blank’s The Startup Manual or Four Step to Epiphany. * Dan Olsen, The Lean Product Playbook * Ryan Singer, Shape Up * Jake Knapp, Sprint * Jeff Patton, User Story Mapping * Stephen Wunker, Costovation * Jackie Bavaro, Cracking the PM Career Also checkout /r/productmanagement subreddit.
on “Getting started in product management? Any recommended books?” ↗"The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback" by Dan Olsen is a decent start.
on “Building a business, not just an app” ↗…inside the company are way too close to the product to be able to determine which features are the right ones. I recommend “The Right It” by Alberto Savoia, “What Customers Want” by Tony Ulwick, and “The Lean Product Playbook” by Dan Olsen if Cutler’s essay doesn’t convince you.
on “Signs you’re working in a feature factory (2016)” ↗…anything new... it probably won't be much help on it's own. It's useful though if you use to see how people try to solve known problems. Best resources hands down IMO for understanding 0 to PMF are: The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen. Gives a good view on how products fit with the market. If the problem space is wobbly, the solution space will suck. The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick (my favourite). Excellent book on user…
on “Ask HN: Is Product Market Fit Just Luck?” ↗Start with Steve Blank’s The Startup Manual or Four Step to Epiphany. Other books Dan Olsen, The Lean Product Playbook Mart Cagan, Inspired Ryan Singer, Shape Up Jake Knapp, Sprint Jeff Patton, User Story Mapping Stephen Wunker, Costovation
on “Ask HN: I'll Build the Top Comment” ↗A list of books I posted in another thread: * Start with Steve Blank’s The Startup Manual or Four Step to Epiphany. Other books: * Dan Olsen, The Lean Product Playbook * Mart Cagan, Inspired * Ryan Singer, Shape Up * Jake Knapp, Sprint * Jeff Patton, User Story Mapping * Stephen Wunker, Costovation Also checkout /r/productmanagement subreddit.
on “Ask HN: Good resources to become a better Product Manager?” ↗Steve Blank's blog (not a book, I know) + The Startup Owners Manual also by Steve Blank. Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen. The two helped me understand what it meant to 'get out of the building'. 7 Powers + Good Strategy Bad Strategy helped me think long term about the business model and evolution of the company.
on “Ask HN: What books helped you in your entrepreneurship journey?” ↗…Explosive Customer Growth" - Gabriel Weinberg (DuckDuckGo's founder). - David Skok's "For Entrepreneurs" - https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/ and https://www.forentrepreneurs.com/zero-to-100/ - "The Lean Product Playbook" - Dan Olsen - EnterpriseReady - https://www.enterpriseready.io/#features - "Lean B2B" - Étienne Garbugli - "High Output Management" - Andrew Grove - MEDDIC sales (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision…
on “Ask HN: Book recommendations to improve XFN and engineering leadership as an IC” ↗…reading). The intention with this list is to built up a good mental tool box to succeed in product management (coming from SW+chip design). PM: - Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love - The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback - Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value - What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven…
on “Ask HN: Is it normal to fall out of love with coding?” ↗…user research? Here's a great short intro: https://www.slideshare.net/xamde/summary-of-the-mom-test I strongly recommend learning about product management and user research. Read The Mom Test and The Lean Product Playbook and do what's relevant. Start there! Happy to discuss more and share more resources that could help. Email in profile.
on “Should I Stop Trying?” ↗…https://www.quora.com/What-is-Amazons-approach-to-product-de... - Kevin Hale video on building products users love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12D8zEdOPYo - Lean Startup (if you haven't read it already, if you have read or skim it again) - Lean Product Playbook - super practical - Four Steps to Epiphany: https://web.stanford.edu/group/e145/cgi-bin/winter/drupal/up... Email in profile if you want more guidance / advice.
on “Ask HN: How do you determine what your customers/market want?” ↗…finding answers so that I allow the team autonomy and also don’t accidentally short circuit the process. The LEAN Startup is worth reading, as is Designing Products People Love by Scott Hurff, and The LEAN Product Playbook. Strategise by Roman Pilcher has some good stuff on business strategy and innovation theory. I signed up to a free trial with Safari Books Online and read everything I could in the time. Lynda.com/LinkedIn…
on “Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?” ↗…The Difference - The Manager's Path - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant - Ultralearning - The Hard Thing About Hard Things - What You Do is Who You Are - User Story Mapping - Inspired - The Lean Product Playbook - Competing Against Luck - Domain Driven Design - Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Data-Driven Marketing - Designing Data-Intensive Applications - Monetizing Innovation…
on “What is expected of a engineering manager?” ↗…Strategy Really Works Great books on tactics and strategy; it helped me improve why we did things and created a much better approach to problems. 3. 4. Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want and The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback Totally changed how I approach building solutions and testing ideas. I learn how to do customer dev interviews and go from learning…
on “Ask HN: Name 3-5 books that had the most impact on your career and knowledge?” ↗The stack reminds me of the Lean Product Playbook's stack by Dan Olsen.
on “The Elements of Product Design” ↗