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The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Audiobook
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Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. 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. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. 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. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
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"As someone who has little management experience it's hard to know how effective the ideas from this book will be in practice. That said, I plan to use many of them in the future as they do seem useful.Unfortunately, the evidence for the effectiveness of the ideas is almost entirely anecdotal. This isn't addressed until the last chapter where Ries proposes experimentally testing the methodology. While this irks me a little, I think there is still great value in learning from Ries's experience."
— Nathan (4 out of 5 stars)
The Lean Startup Listener Reviews
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Mindset, 6/29/2014
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" Started off strong, got a bit repetitive and fizzled out toward the end. Saw a lot of the stories/examples as filler. "
— Briana, 2/20/2014 -
" Rigorous entrepreneurialism requires facts, not faith. "
— Abram, 2/13/2014 -
" Good book for startups and enterprises alike. Lots of useful quotes and stories, and I did not feel like it was a pitch for his consulting although others have gotten that impression. "
— Brandon, 2/12/2014 -
" Extraordinarily practical guide to applying management to product development issues which have historically been viewed as squishy and unmanageable. "
— loafingcactus, 2/10/2014 -
" Fantastic. My first audible since the summer. A great book for any entrepreneur or businessman. Ries really helped to inspire me and to put me in the right direction in how to manage ventures. It will be great to see how the strategy works out. A MUST READ "
— Brentley, 1/27/2014 -
" Meh. While I appreciate the concept of "lean startup" it seems it's become an overused buzzword and marketing ploy to sell books, conference attendance, and waste countless hours trying to adapt to someone else's perfected methodology. From the most pessimistic point of view you could say these types of books are written by charlatans who speak in absolutes about their credo and create hype machines. So much time goes in to writing about lean startups, and blogging about lean startups I wonder how much time is left to run lean startups? Not all bad, as I did enjoy many of the ideas about lean launching and testing, but overall this type of shit is not my cup of tea. "
— Julian, 1/21/2014 -
" There were some great ideas in this book, but I did not think the writing was done very well. "
— Michelle, 1/21/2014 -
" From my personal experience, you should focus on the first half of the book. the rest is pretty much boring. "
— A, 1/14/2014 -
" Very provocative. I usually only give 5 stars to books that I know I will read again. This book is a conversation in philosophy. Each time you return to it, you mine new nuggets of understanding. I will pick it up again for another read in about 6 months. "
— Chad, 11/27/2013 -
" This book was a great read - also a good reference and refresher. If you don't have imagination and can't dream about the possible - this book is not for you. Enjoy. "
— Marilyn, 11/26/2013 -
" Fantastic approach to creating innovation in new companies or invigorating an existing company. Not a theoretical book, based upon real-world experiences and a ton of examples from innovative companies. A must read. "
— Rick, 11/1/2013 -
" I really love the ideas. I am going to go apply some of them in my job now. I have some problems with the examples because I don't think they always do a great job of proving his points. "
— Andy, 10/16/2013 -
" great books for those who are out there in the process of starting up thier venture. Hope to use this ideas and technique soon. "
— Harsh, 8/8/2013 -
" Excellent overview of the lean principles and how they have been applied in real life cases. I would have enjoyed more breakdown on how to track the projects and how the principles can be used for project planning as well. "
— Jon, 7/21/2013 -
" The ideas here are helpful, but sometimes it was difficult to sort out which things were principles that apply to all startups and which were tactics that have only specific application. "
— Ty, 3/8/2013 -
" It's a must read for startup types and entrepreneurs alike. I'm sure there are other books that cover the same material that are more entertaining to read. Regardless, learn this stuff and use it. "
— Grant, 1/12/2013 -
" Very good book on business management. Describes scientific methods that can be used to make business decisions. Great real world examples of learning from failure, using agile/lean methods, and using data to make hard decisions that pay off. "
— Bruce, 10/6/2012 -
" Great book even just to get introduced to modern startup culture and best practices. Easy to understand and lots of actionable advice that can apply to just about any industry. "
— Jeff, 9/24/2012 -
" Great book with lots of ideas to really connect to your customers! "
— Ben, 8/16/2012 -
" This is a synthesis of Eric Ries experiences on starting up companies and guiding them though change. Each chapter could be a book in itself. It's a chalenging read packed full of information but well worth the effort "
— Ray, 5/17/2012 -
" I give it 5 stars as a book of it's kind, since there are so few. Overall thought it had a few good nuggets of wisdom but got really repetitive. I recommend reading the cliffs notes to this book. "
— Dennis, 4/6/2012 -
" This book was great. It will become a desktop staple for its lessons on how to approach business in a smart and lean way. "
— StartUp, 2/12/2012 -
" If you are looking to start a company I'd recommend this book. If your looking to add additional tools to your agile toolkit, I'd recommend. "
— Chad, 11/3/2011 -
" One of the best technology information books to date. Reading this can help avoid many pitfalls that technology startups face "
— Enrico, 10/28/2011 -
" Fantastic approach to creating innovation in new companies or invigorating an existing company. Not a theoretical book, based upon real-world experiences and a ton of examples from innovative companies. A must read. "
— Rick, 10/12/2011 -
" An absolute read for anyone involved in developing a product "
— Christoffer, 10/8/2011 -
" Good principles, but a large number of poorly chosen stories or anecdotes to drive points in the book. Also, I think Ries is trying to hard to make this a general approach to all kinds of entrepreneurship. "
— Tudor, 10/5/2011 -
" About 100 pages too long, but has some great ideas otherwise "
— Phil, 10/2/2011 -
" i liked this, and fully agree with most of it, but thought it not quite as good as its predecessor - 'the four steps to the epiphany'.<br/><br/> "
— Dan, 9/20/2011 -
" A solid crystallization of lean startup principles. Heavily dog-eared. "
— Harish, 9/19/2011 -
" 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. Not bad, not really my realm of expertise so it was a little slow at times. I thought it was a little too hyped also. "
— Darrin, 9/18/2011
About Eric Ries
ERIC RIES is an entrepreneur and author of the popular blog Startup Lessons Learned. He co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU, his third startup, and has had plenty of startup failures along the way. He is a frequent speaker at business events, has advised a number of startups, large companies, and venture capital firms on business and product strategy, and is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School. His Lean Startup methodology has been written about in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, the Huffington Post, and many blogs. He lives in San Francisco.