The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
I just finished reading The Lean Startup by Eric Ries and I highly recommend it. We’re an agile development shop but are adopting lean methodologies (continuous development, driven by a simple question: are the dogs eating the dog food?). A few points in the book really stuck with me, and I thought I’d share them here.
- The key question in a startup is “Should this product be built?” not “Can this product be built?”. Even if you already have a product, you should continually be asking yourself this question. On a related note, you know when you have product/market fit. If you don’t know you do, then you don’t.
- You should build your product for early adopters. Those folks will feel the need most acutely and will provide valuable feedback. If they don’t eat the dog food, then you know your product isn’t going to work.
- MVP is not about building the smallest possible product, but getting through the build-measure-learn feedback loop the fastest with the minimum amount of effort.
- Do not worry about your idea being stolen. It will be hard enough for you to get customers to use your product, let alone a competitor finding it and copying it before they do (and why would they copy it before you have proven product/market fit).
- Do not measure your runway by the equation {cash/monthly burn}. The true measure is how many times you can get through the build-measure-learn feedback loop (eg pivot).
- Do not throw everything out every time you pivot; repurpose what has been built and what you have learned to find a more positive direction.
- If you plan to grow your business virally, your viral coefficient has to be greater than 1.
- As Peter Drucker said, “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”
