The Lean Startup
by Eric Ries · first published 2011
46% recommend46% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
Practical framework for validating a business idea with customers before building much: MVPs, fast learning loops, and tracking real metrics. Suits first-time founders and side-project builders.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Most startups are built to fail. But those failures, according to entrepreneur Eric Ries, are preventable. Startups don't fail because of bad execution, or missed deadlines, or blown budgets. They fail because they are building something nobody wants. Whether they arise from someone's garage or are created within a mature Fortune 500 organization, new ventures, by definition, are designed to create new products or services under conditions of extreme uncertainly. Their primary mission is to find out what customers ultimately will buy. One of the central premises of The Lean Startup movement i
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My $0.02, having been a PM for many years: Read Cracking the PM Interview [1] (for an overview of the job, not the actual interview tips) and The Lean Startup [2] (for general philosophy). 35 is a great age for a PM, especially since PM's often start elsewhere -- maturity is a plus here. I'd say there are 3 main ways into it -- as an engineer, who starts to…
on “Ask HN: Move to product management at 35?” ↗…didn't have a proper business model at that time. (the site is still functioning though :) That being said, I'm now about to start off a new venture after learning from the mistakes. I'll be following the Lean Startup methodology as explained by Eric Ries. URL: http://hireme.lk So far I have been able to plan and launch the "magic page" for my new startup on my own. For this time also I'm thinking of following a…
on “Ask HN: Playing the role of a "jack of all trades" in a self-funded startup” ↗Good points, but I really don't agree with the analogy of Andy's predicament and a startup... You have no idea how deep the wall is. Then find out. Google "lean startup", "Eric Ries", "Steve Blank", or "Rob Walling". There is a strong active movement for avoiding exactly this problem. Anyone starting a business should embrace it. You have nothing but a rock hammer.…
on “‘The Shawshank Redemption’: A Simple But Powerful Message” ↗…!Other honorable mentions:! Actionable Gamification (Yu-Kai Chou) I invented the Modern Age (Richard Snow) Inside the tornado (Geoffrey Moore) Jony Ive (Leander Kahney) Sprint (Jake Knapp) The lean startup (Eric Ries) The selfish Gene (Richard Dawkins) Titan (Ron Chernow) The inevitable (Kevin Kelly) The Innovators (Walter Isaacson) Scrum (Jeff Sutherland) !Most if not all have an audio-book…
on “Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?” ↗…depressing to read. Why would he want to raise $24mm when he could just build a profitable sales machine from day one, with a Scalable and repeatable sales process? I think he should read the book _The Lean Startup_ by Eric Ries.
on “Misadventures in VC Funding: The $24 Million Moz Almost Raised” ↗…now is 'STARTING' with limited information. If you can couple that with an insane drive to 'COMPLETE', you'd be prepped & ready. --------------- Since you mentioned 'web apps', Get into action, the 'lean startup' way: [http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-...] - list a few target markets/niches you'd like to work with - research them online/offline (forums, meetup groups etc.) & dig…
on “Ask HN: how can I prepare myself for a web startup (while still in college)? ” ↗…just added these books to my "To Get" list.. Which is already large. As a broke fresh college graduate, one of the most widely talked about books (and one I actually bought myself) was Eric Ries' The Lean Startup. It really helped me feel like I had a sense of direction instead of "thinking I knew" something,
on “Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read” ↗1) Never Split the Difference Really, this book changed how I view communication and negotiation forever. It will definitely impact your life positively. 2) The Lean Startup A classic, but worth re-reading. Everytime I read the book, it leaves a greater imprint on how I think. 3) The Obstacle is the Way How to turn obstacles into solutions. This book is a great treatise…
on “Ask HN: What books do you recommend reading once a year?” ↗…you don't even need the whole book, there's a PDF with the first couple chapters floating around [1]. I had a bunch of "holy shit, that's exactly what I did wrong" moments while reading it. Eric Ries' "Lean Startup" is also an excellent book on this topic. [1] http://web.stanford.edu/group/e145/cgi-bin/winter/drupal/upl...
on “Bleeding-edge tech will kill your startup” ↗A list I put together a while back: https://www.encona.com/posts/product-manager-resources Overview books: * Inspired * The Product Manager’s Desk Reference * The Lean Startup * Agile Product Management with Scrum Interview preparation (good for breadth, even if you’re not applying for jobs): * Decode & Conquer * Cracking the PM interview Other good books for PMs: * Hooked…
on “Getting started in product management? Any recommended books?” ↗The book "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries helped me understand what an MVP is about. It is about learning. So 'viable' doesn't mean someone can barely use it to do X. It is more like an experiment that should answer a question (an…
on “How to Build a Minimum Lovable Product” ↗…this is the one to read The Principles of Product Development Flow (Tom Reinertsen) Agile Software Development, 2nd. ed. (Alistair Cockburn) Extreme Programming Explained, 2nd ed. (Kent Beck) The Lean Startup (Eric Ries)
on “Ask HN: Does the Scrum Framework Work?” ↗Zero to One - Peter Thiel The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
on “Ask HN: Books with a high signal to noise ratio?” ↗- The Four Steps to the Epiphany - The Lean Startup
on “Ask HN: Suggest good books on bootstrapping a startup” ↗…there's an interesting convergence between customer development and lean as applied to tech startups. Customer development is described in Steven Blank's "The Four Steps to the Epiphany" and Eric Ries' "The lean startup" is the book on lean startups. Both Blank and Ries have contributed to this convergence that I talk about at their respective sites [1] [2] but there's also overviews available [3] [4]. But why am I even…
on “Ask HN: Advice on when it is acceptable to simply "hack something together"?” ↗