The Lean Startup

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are avoidable. The Lean Startup is a new approach that is catching on around the world and changing the way companies are built and new products are brought to market.

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is as true for a person in a garage as it is for a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate this fog of uncertainty to find a successful path to a sustainable business. Lean Startup 's approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and more effective at leveraging human creativity. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, and a set of counterintuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure real progress without resorting to vain metrics, and learn what customers really want. It allows a company to change direction with agility and change plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup provides entrepreneurs - in businesses of all sizes - a way to continually test their vision, adapt and change before it's too late. Ries offers a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups at a time when businesses need to innovate more than ever.