Book Review: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

As I am writing this, I have just paid the last installment of the fees for making a web-based application. The cost of making it was significant as was the time spent on visualizing, interacting with the developer and testing it. And now I am not sure that it is something I will be translating into a business of my own, at least not in the near future. Sigh. When I got this business idea, I wanted to just-do-it nike style before it gets too late and so I wrote the B-plan in a train travel, met the website designing company the next day and closed the deal day after. I now wish I would have read this book before that.

Eric Ries has written a masterpiece for entrepreneurs with radical concepts and ideas. And you come out buying everything the author has said much like a textbook because everything he has talked about makes sense, is practical and is backed by reason. The book is divided into three parts – Vision, Steer and Accelerate which is further divided into 12 chapters.

In the first part, he talks about how once you get an idea you should go on defining it and go about testing your hypotheses. Every business idea is made up of some hypotheses – people need X, A is inferior B will do a much better job, if there would be Z in the market people will completely change how they are currently doing things etc. All these beliefs of ours, which are obvious to us has many more layers to it or is sometimes even outright wrong though it might appear infallible from our vantage point. All these hypotheses need testing and further refinement for which one should start with what the author calls MVP – Minimum Viable Product. There are many arguments against MVP for example, mine were I will not get the best response if they do not experience the full thing or they might steal my idea. But if you think deeper through those arguments, MVP does make perfect sense.

In the second part, author discusses developing the product further by testing each and every change and deciding which one are making sense and should be included and which ones should not be. Here he highlights vanity matrices and how we should stay away from them. It is very important for startups to use relevant matrices. He also talks about pivot-or-persevere moments in startups when you have to take a call whether to continue working hard on the path you are going or to change the path now knowing something you did not know earlier.

Third part is all about the organization structure, policies and processes that will help you grow. Here he talks about different engines of growth on which a startup needs to be very clear that which one it is going to target. Here he has emphasized on innovation and how to inculcate it as part of the startup culture. The epilogue in which he has discussed how Taylor’s work has been misinterpreted and misused in today’s business world and why startup should not be victim of that, is also very interesting read.

Overall it was very enriching book. I especially liked how the author has been talking about how so much energy and talent is getting wasted chasing unclear and imagined ideas. His work has been an amazing effort towards reducing that loss. I highly recommend this book if you want to start your own company, you have one or are in involved into intrapreneurship.