Eric Ries drew on his own startup failures and on lean manufacturing ideas from Toyota to propose a scientific approach to entrepreneurship. He defines a startup as a human institution creating a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty, a definition that includes teams inside large companies and government agencies as well as garage ventures.
The core of the method is the build-measure-learn feedback loop. Instead of spending months on a perfect launch, teams release a minimum viable product, measure how real customers behave, and use that evidence to test their leap-of-faith assumptions. Ries introduces innovation accounting, actionable rather than vanity metrics, split testing, small batches and continuous deployment, and the disciplined choice to pivot when the data says the strategy is wrong.
Examples range from IMVU, the company Ries co-founded, to Dropbox, Intuit and Zappos. The vocabulary of the book quickly entered the mainstream of product management, and its ideas now underpin accelerator programmes, corporate innovation labs and agile product teams around the world. Ries later built on the approach in The Startup Way, aimed at established companies.
Book details
| Author | Eric Ries |
|---|---|
| First published | 2011 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Business |
| Type | Non-fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 336 |
Themes
- Experimentation
- Validated learning
- Product development
- Uncertainty
- Iteration
Who should read it
Founders, product managers and corporate innovators who want a disciplined way to test ideas before investing heavily in them.
If you liked this, try
- Zero to One
- The Startup Owner's Manual
- Inspired