The Lean Startup
Also known as The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
Eric Ries's 2011 method for startups: ship a minimum viable product, learn from users, iterate.
At a glance
Key ideas
Minimum viable product, Validated learning, Shorter cycles …
See all 4Criticism
The Conversation, 2019
Connections
See all 2
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- Ries sets out the lean startup method, which puts rapid prototyping, validated learning and iterative releases first.
- Its aim is to shorten product development cycles.
- A startup builds a minimum viable product and refines it from user feedback.
- The method draws on lean manufacturing and agile development, and favours experiments over long-term business plans.
Why it matters
- It quickly became a foundational text in entrepreneurship classes; Harvard Business Review called it a bible for "business neophytes".
Key facts
- Author
- Eric Ries1
- Published
- 20111
- Sales
- More than one million copies, according to the publisher; translated into over thirty languages1
- Best-seller
- Debuted at No. 2 on The New York Times Hardcover Advice & Misc. list in 20111
- Users
- Organisations that adopted it include Dropbox, Wealthfront and General Electric1
Key ideas
-
Minimum viable product1
Build the smallest product that can be tested, then refine it from user feedback.
-
Validated learning1
Progress is what experiments show about customers, not what a plan predicts.
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Shorter cycles1
Rapid prototyping and iterative releases shorten product development.
-
Lean and agile roots1
It borrows from lean manufacturing and agile software development.
Criticism
-
The Conversation, 20191
Not for industries where prototypes are costly or risky, where tests cost more than they gain, or for teams too inexperienced to read the results.
Connections
Links
Sources
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