> For those expecting a detailed step-by-step roadmap of the Lean Startup, you're likely to be disappointed. The subject is simply too large to be covered in one book, and many of the individual concepts have already been covered in other sources (Eric does a great job of suggesting further reading).
This book makes my cynic sense tingle.
Anyone have a list of the further reading, because what I'm interested in are concrete things to do, not "high-level" concepts.
> Eric has done a great job of providing examples of the Lean Startup in the context of large organizations such as Intuit and IGN, and devotes the last few chapters of the book to this very topic
I think big companies are the target market for his book. He would like to sell his consulting services to them.
Nothing wrong with that - he seems like a really bright guy with a lot of good ideas, who does indeed know his stuff, and could provide a lot of value to companies. He also "walked the walk", having a successful company of his own. It's just that I don't know if real startups will derive that much value from the book, from what I've read of it.
Perhaps you've had different experiences, but the issues raised in the book are things I've encountered repeatedly in new companies, and I've repeatedly seen new companies fail for exactly the reasons the book describes.
For many of us on HN there is little new information in the book. However, we have to recognize that the concept of experimenting with an MVP is completely foreign to many entrepreneurs, and even among those who know about and pay lip service to it, they very frequently can't commit to it in practice. I've seen this issue come up time and time with both new and seasoned, successful entrepreneurs. They think they know what customers want and cling to unproven notions irrationally. They get hyper focused on unnecessary features. They delay launches over fear of launching with an "imperfect" product, and also don't recognize that their vision of perfection is unproven and frequently flawed.
In fact, as a developer, this issues have come up in every project in which I've paired with a less-than-technical stakeholder. As someone who has been very active in startup communities, my observation has been that the tendencies the book intends to fight are rampant among non-technical founders.
I'm happy this book exists, because it's finally an easily digestible introduction to some baseline concepts that many entrepreneurs have a difficult time understanding and putting into practice.
The concrete things to do are build, measure, iterate. I think the case studies in the book are extremely helpful to entrepreneurs. I think you need to have some entrepreneurial experience to get much out of it though. Until you've run into some of the problems that the lean startup proposes to solve, you'll probably find the concepts too abstract.
If you're looking for a book to take you from step 1 to the end of building a successful, profitable business, you'll be looking for the rest of your life. There are far too many variables to create a completely replicable business. Instead, it's better to know what things to look for going in, and have a framework in place that makes it easy for you to see if you're on the right track. I think Eric's book does a great job of showing that side of things.
If you're looking for additional reading on the topic, you might find '4 Step to the Epiphany' worth reading. 'Business Model Generation' also gives some additional tools. You won't find anything (worth reading) that gives you step-by-step instructions, but there's enough literature out there on the Lean Startup methodologies that you should have enough to get started.
It's obviously impossible to provide a 'template' book that "walks you through it". If it were that simple, everyone would be doing it.
I've read plenty of business books, and most of them tend towards the "few big ideas, expanded to fill a book", and I'm getting the impression this one may fit that mold.
Rob Walling's (honest, I'm not paid to promote it:-) Start Small, Stay Small, gives you a bunch of very practical tools and numbers to use to work on a small startup, and is my new benchmark for this kind of book.
It's easy to write "build, measure, iterate". What kinds of useful details does Ries go into about those, though?
Comments
> For those expecting a detailed step-by-step roadmap of the Lean Startup, you're likely to be disappointed. The subject is simply too large to be covered in one book, and many of the individual concepts have already been covered in other sources (Eric does a great job of suggesting further reading).
This book makes my cynic sense tingle.
Anyone have a list of the further reading, because what I'm interested in are concrete things to do, not "high-level" concepts.
> Eric has done a great job of providing examples of the Lean Startup in the context of large organizations such as Intuit and IGN, and devotes the last few chapters of the book to this very topic
I think big companies are the target market for his book. He would like to sell his consulting services to them.
Nothing wrong with that - he seems like a really bright guy with a lot of good ideas, who does indeed know his stuff, and could provide a lot of value to companies. He also "walked the walk", having a successful company of his own. It's just that I don't know if real startups will derive that much value from the book, from what I've read of it.
Here's the top review for it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3287ICLQ9STI3/ref=cm_cr_dp_per...
Not entirely positive...
Perhaps you've had different experiences, but the issues raised in the book are things I've encountered repeatedly in new companies, and I've repeatedly seen new companies fail for exactly the reasons the book describes.
For many of us on HN there is little new information in the book. However, we have to recognize that the concept of experimenting with an MVP is completely foreign to many entrepreneurs, and even among those who know about and pay lip service to it, they very frequently can't commit to it in practice. I've seen this issue come up time and time with both new and seasoned, successful entrepreneurs. They think they know what customers want and cling to unproven notions irrationally. They get hyper focused on unnecessary features. They delay launches over fear of launching with an "imperfect" product, and also don't recognize that their vision of perfection is unproven and frequently flawed.
In fact, as a developer, this issues have come up in every project in which I've paired with a less-than-technical stakeholder. As someone who has been very active in startup communities, my observation has been that the tendencies the book intends to fight are rampant among non-technical founders.
I'm happy this book exists, because it's finally an easily digestible introduction to some baseline concepts that many entrepreneurs have a difficult time understanding and putting into practice.
The concrete things to do are build, measure, iterate. I think the case studies in the book are extremely helpful to entrepreneurs. I think you need to have some entrepreneurial experience to get much out of it though. Until you've run into some of the problems that the lean startup proposes to solve, you'll probably find the concepts too abstract.
If you're looking for a book to take you from step 1 to the end of building a successful, profitable business, you'll be looking for the rest of your life. There are far too many variables to create a completely replicable business. Instead, it's better to know what things to look for going in, and have a framework in place that makes it easy for you to see if you're on the right track. I think Eric's book does a great job of showing that side of things.
If you're looking for additional reading on the topic, you might find '4 Step to the Epiphany' worth reading. 'Business Model Generation' also gives some additional tools. You won't find anything (worth reading) that gives you step-by-step instructions, but there's enough literature out there on the Lean Startup methodologies that you should have enough to get started.
It's obviously impossible to provide a 'template' book that "walks you through it". If it were that simple, everyone would be doing it.
I've read plenty of business books, and most of them tend towards the "few big ideas, expanded to fill a book", and I'm getting the impression this one may fit that mold.
Rob Walling's (honest, I'm not paid to promote it:-) Start Small, Stay Small, gives you a bunch of very practical tools and numbers to use to work on a small startup, and is my new benchmark for this kind of book.
It's easy to write "build, measure, iterate". What kinds of useful details does Ries go into about those, though?