Book review: "The Lean Startup"

"The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" by Eric Ries is a must read for anyone trying to launch your own small bushiness or startup! This is a book that can help engineers think of a new business more like a product they engineer and test. I listened to the book, again, on Audible for $20; although I had originally read the book back in 2011, I felt it important to go over the lessons again. The version I listened to was recorded by Eric Ries himself, so that was interesting for me to hear the author read their own text (8.5 hrs / ~300 pages). The entire book touts some pretty core philosophies, such as test your assumptions with a minimum viable product, using a build, measure, learn strategy. I also think it builds on The Phoenix Project a bit, by giving us more techniques from the familiar Toyta success stories, such as the method of Five Whys. The examples in the book are all fairly recent and well known successful ventures from the silicon valley, which supports how pragmatic his lean startup philosophies can be. I really liked how his theories revolved around testing products, which resonated with me as a tester and infosec analyst. I would recommend this book to hackers, inventors, founders, CEOs, CTOs, and essentially anyone building or delivering a product or service. Ultimately, I give the book 7 / 10 stars, because I believe it teaches important lessons but can drone on and dons't have too much reread value.

Introduction
Origins of the Lean Startup
The Lean Startup Method
Why Startups Fail
How This Book is Organized
Management's Second Century

Part One: Vision

Chapter 1: Start
Entrepreneurial Management
The Roots of the Lean Startup

Chapter 2: Define
Who, Exactly, is an Entrepreneur
If I'm an Entrepreneur, What's a Startup?
The Snaptax Story
A Seven-Thousand-Person Lean Startup

Chapter 3: Learn
Validated Learning at IMVU
Brilliant Strategy
Six Months to Launch
Launch
Talking to Customers
Throwing My Work Away
Value Vs. Waste
Where Do You Find Validation?
The Audacity of Zero
Lessons Beyond IMVU

Chapter 4: Experiment
From Alchemy To Science
Think Big, Start Small
For Long-Term Change, Experiment Immediately
Break It Down
An Experiment is a Product
The Village Laundry Service
A Lean Startup In Government

Part Two: Steer

Chapter 5: Leap
Strategy is Based on Assumptions
Analogs and Antilogs
Beyond "The Right Place at the Right Time"
Value and Growth
Genchi Gembutsu
Get out of the Building
Design and the Customer Archetype
Analysis Paralysis

Chapter 6: Test
Why First Products Aren't Meant to Be Perfect
The Video Minimum Viable Product
The Concierge Minimum Viable Product
Pay No Attention to the Eight People Behind the Curtain
The Role of Quality and Design in an MVP
Speedbumps in Building an MVP
From the MVP to Innovation Accounting

Chapter 7: Measure
Why Something as Seemingly Dull as Accounting Will Change Your Life
An Accountability Framework that Works Across Industries
How Innovation Accounting Works - Three Learning Milestones
Establish the Baseline
Tuning the Engine
Pivot or Persevere
Innovation Accounting at IMVU
Improving a Product on Five Dollars a Day
Cohort Analysis
Optimization Versus Learning
Vanity Metrics: A Word of Caution
Actionable Metrics Versus Vanity Metrics
Cohorts and Split-tests
Kanban
Hypothesis Testing at Grockit
The Value of the Three A's
Actionable
Accessible
Auditable

Chapter 8: Pivot (or Persevere)
Innovation Accounting Leads to Faster Pivots
A Startup's Runway is the Number of Pivots it Can Still Make
Pivots Require Courage
The Pivot or Persevere Meeting
Failure To Pivot
A Catalog of Pivots
Zone-in Pivot
Zone-out Pivot
Customer Segment Pivot
Customer Need Pivot
Platform Pivot
Business Architecture Pivot
Value Capture Pivot
Engine of Growth Pivot
Channel Pivot
Technology Pivot
A Pivot is a Strategic Hypothesis

Part Three: Accelerate

Chapter 9: Batch
Small Batches in Entrepreneurship
Small Batches at IMVU
Continuous Deployment Beyond Software
Hardware Becoming Software
Fast Production Changes
3D Pricing and Rapid Prototyping Tools
Small Batches In Action
Small Batches in Education
The Large-Batch Death Spiral
Pull, Don't Push
Hypothesis Pull in Clean Tech

Chapter 10: Grow
Where Does Growth Come From?
Word of Mouth
As a Side Effect of Product Usage
Through Funded Advertising
Through Repeat Purchase or Use
The Three Engines of Growth
The Sticky Engine of Growth
The Viragl Engine of Growth
The Paid Engine of Growth
A Technical Caveat
Engines of Growth Determine Product / Market Fit
When Engines Run Out

Chapter 11: Adapt
Building an Adaptive Organization
Can You Go Too Fast?
The Wisdom of the Five Whys
Make a Proportional Investment
Automatic Speed Regulator
The Curse of the Five Blames
Getting Started
Facing Unpleasant Truths
Start Small, Be Specific
Appoint a Five Whys Master
The Five Whys in Action
Don't Send Your Baggage through the Five Whys Process
Adapting to Smaller Batches
Year One: Achieving Failure
Year Two: Muscle Memory
Year Three: Explosion

Chapter 12: Innovate
How to Disrupt Innovation
Scarce by Secure Resources
Independent Development Authority
A Personal Stake in the Outcome
Creating a Platform for Experimentation
Protecting the Parent Organization
Rational Fears
The Dangers of Hiding Innovation inside the Black Box
Creating an Innovation Sandbox
Holding International Teams Accountable
Cultivating the Management Portfolio
Entrepreneur is a Job Title
Becoming the Status Quo

Chapter 13: Epilogue: Waste Not
Organizational Superpowers
Putting the System First: Some Dangers
Product Development Pseudoscience
A New Research Program
The Long-Term Stock Exchange
In Conclusion

Chapter 14: Join the Movement
Lean Startup Meetups
The Lean Startup Wiki
The Lean Startup Circle
The Startup Lessons LEarned Conference
Required Reading
Further Reading

I like how he emphases validating both value proposition and growth proposition with early adopter data, not intuition or verbal feedback, this makes his philosophies very real. I also like how he puts an emphasis on decreasing the batch size to get development cycles tighter, and thus test new assumptions more rapidly. The book has a companion site, which also includes a wiki and an annual conference!  Despite all my praise, at points the book can drag on, seemingly beating the same ideas in over and over again, although it does this in an entertaining manner, using examples of recent and successful startups. The audio also doesn't have all of the cool graphics like the text, so having the physical copy was refreshing for the graphics. At the end of the day, it's a great book to read if your about to start your business or launch a product!