Scan barcode
spaces_and_solaces's review
4.0
The world of start ups or of businesses have always seem alluring to me. The stories of how businesses found success or what the entrepreneurs had to do to ‘make it’ are endlessly fascinating. And that’s why listening to ‘how I built this’ podcast is part of my morning routine.
But while there are a lot of such stories out there, Eric Ries has written a book “The Lean Startup” that will actually show you how you too can be one of those stories.
This book is for the entrepreneurs who have an idea/product/service and are trying to figure out the next steps. It aims to reduce the risk of failures by applying the concept of lean manufacturing to entrepreneurship. It provides a lot of practical & actionable insights even to those who are just starting out or those who have an established business.
But while there are a lot of such stories out there, Eric Ries has written a book “The Lean Startup” that will actually show you how you too can be one of those stories.
This book is for the entrepreneurs who have an idea/product/service and are trying to figure out the next steps. It aims to reduce the risk of failures by applying the concept of lean manufacturing to entrepreneurship. It provides a lot of practical & actionable insights even to those who are just starting out or those who have an established business.
elly29's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
I gleaned some insights about startups and innovation, albeit I was listening at 1.5x speed. Additionally, this was first published in 2011, and a lot of the ideas about being “agile” have become a bit more mainstream, and certainly a lot of his case studies are less relevant (I guess Zappos is still a thing? Kodak definitely isn’t), and whoof it is 2024, as far away from publication as publication was to the dot-com bubble. So, I listen with a chip on my shoulder.
“The Lean Startup” method is essentially applying the scientific method to systems. One needs to have a hypothesis about X, and then test to see if X is indeed the case. Be small, be iterative, be ready to pivot, and use non-vanity metrics of like year-over-year growth.
It’s motto is “build, measure, learn,” and learnings (not just of what not to do, but what to do, what to build) is the most important product that a company can create. Because there’s nothing worse than wasted time: you want to build the right product. (Sometimes, you find you built the wrong product. In that case, you might find that you did indeed build the right product… for a different customer, and therefore you need to pivot to selling to that channel.) Minimum viable products are the winners, and it doesn’t need to be a shiny demo software — Groupon’s MVP at its inception was some guys buying up pizza coupons and sending out an email.
I think Ries leaned heavily on the Toyota Production System, but translating those items from manufacturing a tangible product into how to manufacture software. It might almost be better to jump straight to reading about the TPS. But, oh well.
I do agree with his statement that it is systems that need improving — where waste is eliminated. If you go slow, you go smooth, and then you go far (that’s the dream, anyway).
rsr143's review
3.0
Don't let my 3-star review deceive you, this is really good book. I rated it 3-stars, however, since for me the concepts were not new. I am familiar with Toyota's lean manufacturing approach, having studied it in college and early in my business career. I am also familiar with "agile" engineering methods and many of the innovation sources referenced by this book (C. Christiansen's and G. Moore's work in particularly) and applied them to how I did research and gathered customer feedback in my corporate career at a large software company. Lastly, I've read so many "lean" oriented articles that the book just didn't teach me anything new. That said, if I was totally unfamiliar with the approach, I would rate it a 4 (or perhaps 5).
benyoda95's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.0
There are better books that discuss the lean model. Great reminder to test and iterate