Books by Eric Ries
The Lean Startup is the Eric Ries book in our library. Its argument is that uncertainty is the defining condition of a new venture, and that the response is to run it as a sequence of small experiments with measurable outcomes rather than as a plan being executed.
The hard part of the method is not the loop, it is the honesty it demands. Running an experiment is easy; accepting a result that contradicts what you wanted to be true is the discipline the book is really asking for, and it is where most attempts at this fail.
How to read it. Read it if you have already built something and genuinely cannot tell whether it is working. That is the problem the method addresses.
It sits in the Entrepreneurship bundle as the testing discipline of the set. Where the others supply conviction, this one supplies the method for finding out whether the conviction was right.
The book
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
Eric RiesUncertainty handled by experiment rather than by conviction. The build, measure, learn loop is the mechanism, and the discipline it demands is being willing to read the result honestly, including when the result says the idea was wrong.
What it argues- A new venture is a series of experiments, not a plan being executed.
- Build, measure, learn: each cycle should end in a decision rather than in more building.
- Define the metric before you run the experiment, or you will rationalise the outcome.
- A pivot is a considered change of direction based on evidence, not an admission of failure.
- Vanity metrics feel good and inform nothing.
- Validated learning is the real output of an early venture, not revenue.
Suited to someone who has already built something and cannot tell whether it is working, and to teams that keep shipping without learning anything. Less useful before you have something in front of a real user.
Where to start
Read it after you have something in front of a real user, not before. The method needs a live thing to experiment on. If you are still at the idea stage, read The $100 Startup first and come back here once you have a customer, because the book is close to useless as a planning exercise and very useful as an operating one.
Where this fits
This is the rigorous book of the shelf and the counterweight to the inspirational ones. The $100 Startup tells you it is possible, Shoe Dog tells you what it costs, and this one tells you how to find out whether it is working. Read it after the encouraging books, once you have something that could actually be measured.
The rest of this shelf
The Entrepreneurship shelf holds 5 books in total. These are the others, each condensed into a guide you can finish in about 15 minutes:
- The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future by Chris Guillebeau
- Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
- Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
- The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything by Guy Kawasaki
Experiment, with the other four
The Lean Startup is in the Entrepreneurship bundle with The $100 Startup, Shoe Dog, Start with Why and The Art of the Start.
Five complete guides, about 15 minutes each.
Explore EntrepreneurshipUncertainty is the condition. Experiment is the response.