It could just as easily have been titled 'The Scientific Startup' but I guess that might have scared people off. I've read a lot of business books (and also written one) and this is the best I've seen in a long time.

Quite simply the best business book of the year Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning”, rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product-development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.Įric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. But many of those failures are preventable.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries