The Lean Startup
Essay #2 Book Report
October 15, 2017
Introduction: “The Lean Startup" is a book by Entrepreneur, Eric Ries. Ries begins the book by telling stories of his various entrepreneur ventures and why they ultimately failed. He goes into what an entrepreneur is by his definition; “an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty”. He discusses the misconceptions that individuals have about what it is to be an entrepreneur and subsequently why most start-ups ultimately fail. He wrote this book to share with entrepreneurs a-like, the lessons he learned from his own failures/successes and more importantly, how to stop the waste of start-up’s innovation and products. Ries takes …show more content…
The first step (Build) means you build a minimally viable product. This means, before you invest a plethora of the company’s recourses, you put out the most basic version of the product. The second step (Measure) you run tests to see if there is enough interest in the product. How well was your product received? Do people actually want to use it? Can you build a business around this product? Then you have the third step (Learn). In this step you analyze what you have measured and you make a decision to Pivot (go a different direction) or Persevere (You continue with your initial idea. Steps one through three are a feedback loop (the goal of these steps is to receive feedback so that you know how to proceed. This feedback loop process is infinite, as you will repeat the loop to continuously improve and refine your …show more content…
In the past I think we would have tried to make the product perfect before putting it out on the market because of fear of getting bad reviews and our product being deemed “crap”. I see the value now on the customer focus first (is there a demand for the product) before spending precious resources, personnel, time, and money on a product no one wants. I also had never thought about how many companies and unrealized ideas get thrown in the garbage can. I can see how this system can work several companies of all shapes and sizes. Even though tech giant’s like Google can afford to make a mistake and waste time on a product that fails, why should they? This is even more important for startups that don’t necessarily have money to waste. I think the biggest leap of faith decision with The Lean Startup, merely trusting the process. I think it is very easy to want to revert to the old way of thinking but this makes sense to me
Essay #2 Book Report
October 15, 2017
Introduction: “The Lean Startup" is a book by Entrepreneur, Eric Ries. Ries begins the book by telling stories of his various entrepreneur ventures and why they ultimately failed. He goes into what an entrepreneur is by his definition; “an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty”. He discusses the misconceptions that individuals have about what it is to be an entrepreneur and subsequently why most start-ups ultimately fail. He wrote this book to share with entrepreneurs a-like, the lessons he learned from his own failures/successes and more importantly, how to stop the waste of start-up’s innovation and products. Ries takes …show more content…
The first step (Build) means you build a minimally viable product. This means, before you invest a plethora of the company’s recourses, you put out the most basic version of the product. The second step (Measure) you run tests to see if there is enough interest in the product. How well was your product received? Do people actually want to use it? Can you build a business around this product? Then you have the third step (Learn). In this step you analyze what you have measured and you make a decision to Pivot (go a different direction) or Persevere (You continue with your initial idea. Steps one through three are a feedback loop (the goal of these steps is to receive feedback so that you know how to proceed. This feedback loop process is infinite, as you will repeat the loop to continuously improve and refine your …show more content…
In the past I think we would have tried to make the product perfect before putting it out on the market because of fear of getting bad reviews and our product being deemed “crap”. I see the value now on the customer focus first (is there a demand for the product) before spending precious resources, personnel, time, and money on a product no one wants. I also had never thought about how many companies and unrealized ideas get thrown in the garbage can. I can see how this system can work several companies of all shapes and sizes. Even though tech giant’s like Google can afford to make a mistake and waste time on a product that fails, why should they? This is even more important for startups that don’t necessarily have money to waste. I think the biggest leap of faith decision with The Lean Startup, merely trusting the process. I think it is very easy to want to revert to the old way of thinking but this makes sense to me