The Lean Startup

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a book by Eric Ries describing his proposed lean startup strategy for startup companies.

In his book, Ries applies scientific principles to entrepreneurship, advocating for an approach he calls "just-in-time scalability": conducting product experiments without massive up-front investments in planning and design. The book shows the value of actionable metrics for decision-making, and the importance of pivoting (changing course) when necessary.

Ries developed the idea for the lean startup from his experiences as a startup advisor, employee, and founder. Ries attributes the failure of his first startup, Catalyst Recruiting, to not understanding the wants of their target customers and focusing too much time and energy on the initial product launch.

After Catalyst, Ries was a senior software engineer with There, Inc., which had a failed expensive product launch. Ries sees the error in both cases as "working forward from the technology instead of working backward from the business results you're trying to achieve."

Instead, Ries argues that to build a great company, one must begin with the customer research and interviews, developing a minimum viable product (MVP), and iterating based on feedback. He also recommends the Five Whys technique to identify the root cause of problems.

Companies cited in the book as practicing Ries's ideas include Alphabet Energy of California. Later more organizations have adopted the processes, including Dropbox, Wealthfront, and General Electric.

Reception
According to the publisher, the book "has sold over one million copies and has been translated into more than thirty languages." It was also on The New York Times Best Sellers list.