
I Am Eric Ries, Author of the Lean Startup. AMA - eries
I&#x27;m writing a new book &amp; trying to use lean startup ideas myself in writing it. The new book is only available via Kickstarter, and the campaign ends in 56 hours, so I thought I&#x27;d stop by and answer questions about the new book, lean startup, or anything else.<p>Kickstarter URL: bit.ly&#x2F;theleadersguide<p>EDIT: 1:05pm. I need to sign off for a bit. Thanks for asking such great questions. I&#x27;ll try and stop by later in the day to pick up any stragglers that come in.
======
pbnjay
Perfect timing. I'm bootstrapping my own startup
([http://moonlighter.io](http://moonlighter.io)) at the moment and had a
couple questions about the MVP.

1) How can you quickly validate a business with very little immediately
visible value to the user? Direct user interviews won't work here because the
service is very data-driven (collecting filesystem events), so it'll require a
decent amount of data collection from the user (I'll offer something like a
14-30 day trial to allow this). Since it has to be done over a longer period
of time, and it includes collecting information that might be sensitive to
some people, it's not very easy to fully validate the business. I've had a few
friends using it, and I'll be sharing with a small beta user list soon, but
otherwise I was wondering if you had any other ideas.

2) I've put off writing the payment processing code, focusing on the product
itself. Especially considering the "trial" period necessary to see value, are
there any downsides to releasing the MVP without allowing payments and then
adding them in after release? (Other than no cashflow of course...)

Thanks! I'm actually reading through the lean startup now (after reading way
too much of it's principles on the internet first). So it's neat to be able to
communicate with the author directly like this.

~~~
eries
That technique is actually very common. If you have a 30 day free trial, for
example, you really don't need a payment processor for at least 30 days (and
that's the optimistic scenario! I've seen startups that don't need payment
processing for a lot longer, because nobody completes the trial)

Remember that not only does your product have to create value for customers
but they have to realize that it will create value for them, and both
assumptions are important to test.

------
ianbicking
I hear people talk about Lean Startup methods at many established companies
(where I work included). But I feel like we're deluding ourselves a bit,
playing pretend startup. How applicable do you think the Lean Startup ideas
are to a corporate environment? (One that purportedly wants to adopt these
ideas) What features don't work at all? Who is doing good work to adapt these
ideas for larger corporations?

~~~
eries
There's plenty of "leanwashing" going on, that's for sure.

The key is to move from "pretend startup" to "real startup" \- which is 100%
possible inside an established company if the leadership wants it to happen.
But it is not easy; it requires significant changes to many of the company's
systems, including HR and Finance.

To know if it's likely to work ask yourself: 1\. does the startup have the
authority to operate autonomously or does it need endless approvals and
permissions? 2\. does the startup have a clear board that it is accountable to
for both funding and pivot decisions? 3\. is the statup cross-functional
across all the functions required to build the product? 4\. are the members of
the startup full-time on just that one thing? 5\. is the budgeting process
metered (ie fixed rounds of funding) or entitlement based (ie annual
appropriates with quarterly adjustments)?

If you don't have good answers to all five of these questions, you're probably
playing startup more than real startup.

------
martinblech
Are there examples of lean startup ideas going wrong or being misunderstood
and leading startups straight to failure?

~~~
eries
tons! I think about this all the time, since I feel a responsibility to try
and talk about lean startup in such a way that prevents misunderstanding.

I would say the two most fatal misapplications are:

1\. "up and to the right" disease. here you split-test everything and just do
whatever moves the numbers. pretty soon you are selling porn or psychic
hotlines.

2\. "no vision, no problems" error. It's like trying to do science without a
hypothesis. In lean startup we emphasize that people trying to predict the
future are often wrong, so it's best to experiment and pivot as you learn. But
some people interpret this to mean that the future is unknowable, there's no
point in having any kind of vision, and you should just ship something and see
what happens. the problem with this plan is you are guaranteed to succeed - at
seeing what happens. after-the-fact rationalization will prevent any learning,
because if you can't fail you can't learn. having a big expansive vision is
really helpful because it provides lots of falsifiable hypotheses for testing.

3\. "minimum viable crap" sloppy execution. Some people think MVP means just
throw garbage at the wall and see what sticks, especially since the M makes
people think lean startup is for doing something small. but the truth is if
you're doing something small, you don't need MVP or lean startup. you only
need an MVP if you're trying something large. further, part of the MVP process
is to learn what customers actually value in terms of quality, so we can build
something that they perceive as excellent. shipping crap isn't the goal, and
people that go on TechCrunch with garbage and then claim "but it's an MVP!"
are doing it wrong. the hard truth is that spending more time "perfecting" a
product in the absence of feedback often makes the product worse, not better.

~~~
joshdotsmith
The struggle for me seems to be knowing how much is too little and how much is
too much. Do you try to err on the side of doing too little at first?

~~~
eries
Well, that's a bit like saying "how much science should I use?" There's not
really such a thing as "too much science" more like "bad science" or "too
expensive science." The key, to me, is to pick an experiment that is well
tuned to your circumstance: the right cost, timeline, hypothesis, and clear
action for next steps.

------
kmeves
Eric--for the above-average engineer (lets call him a 3X-5X), but not a 10X or
100X engineer--what advice would you give if they were interested in beginning
a tech venture? How much does personal will play a factor compared to personal
ability? Do they stand a chance to compete? Can you think of founders that
have achieved great success despite lacking supreme talent? And, finally, to
expand a little-- can you think of a character trait that is MOST important
for a founder to possess other than great intelligence / clever execution?

~~~
eries
There are so many assumptions baked into these questions that it's a little
hard to answer. First of all, I'm not a fan of the "10X engineer" framing. I'm
much more interested in the systems that companies can build to create 10X
teams.

I am thinking of two conventional "10X engineers" right now that I've worked
with in my career. One is extremely loud, brash, judgmental and basically
scary. If you are brave enough to come to him with a question, and he thinks
it's stupid, you will basically never live it down. The second is extremely
humble, quiet, and gentle. If you come to him with a question, he probably
won't answer it but will show up two days later with a fully-implemented
solution that he created at 2am just to see if it was possible.

In most companies, the first 10X engineer tends to get promoted to a position
of seniority, while the second is generally allowed to quietly leave the
company when they get bored. And don't even get me started on all the
incredibly talented people out there who our biased hiring processes can't
ever identify as "10X."

If you ever get the chance to mingle with some of the truly famous founders,
ask yourself if they strike you as the smartest people you've ever met. Now,
many of us get star-struck when we meet people who are rich and powerful, and
we rationalize whatever garbage comes out of their mouths as genius
utterances, because deep down we're all still primates. But if you can get
past that, you'll notice that a lot of really successful founders (and
investors for that matter) aren't especially bright or thoughtful. But they do
have other critical character traits that helped them succeed. Here's a PG
classic on the subject:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html)

He also has a great essay about the importance of grit and determination but I
can't quite remember the title.

~~~
_chap
[http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html)

~~~
eries
thanks!

------
ilamont
Hello Eric,

I saw you speak some years ago right around the time your first book came out.
I have a media background, and I noticed some parallels with what you
described at IMVU and what I have seen in my industry.

Typically, the projects have involved large media companies building high-
quality products/brands, such as television shows or websites. They are
designed and built in near-stealth mode with limited opportunities for user
testing or audience feedback, and sometimes (but not always) fail miserably
when they are released to the world. Conversely, there are examples of media
programs/products/brands being developed in a highly iterative/audience-
focused approach and sometimes (but not always) leading to a hit or at least
becoming self-sustaining.

My question is this: Generally speaking, can “lean startup” concepts be
applied to media or other industries, or do the unique characteristics of
those industries — for instance, high cost structures or dependence on
industry-specific business models - make it difficult to really leverage the
software-focused product development concepts you outlined?

I hope to develop a framework with which to approach product development in my
own industry (“lean media”) and would greatly value any
feedback/ideas/suggestions for further reading you may have.

Thanks!

~~~
eries
Yes, I think the fundamental issues are the same as product development
elsewhere: the key is to find product/market fit. Sometimes you swing for the
fences and it works out great. Sometimes you do everything right and you still
fail. It's about probabilities and whether taking a scientific approach can
increase the odds that you build something customers want.

------
explosion
I noticed how even though your book doesn't exist yet, the graphic that you
put up on Kickstarter looks very polished and enticing. But I've also seen
startups dig holes for themselves by over-obsessing about graphic design.

On a startup's first MVP iteration, how little graphic design effort can you
get away with? Does it depend on the product, perhaps? Should all iterations
be visually polished?

~~~
eries
Think about a very delicious cupcake, rather than half the ingredients in a
mixing bowl. That's what most MVPs are like - you want to give the customer a
taste of the end experience you hope to build.

Visual polish is extremely important -- sometimes. Other times, it's lethal.
It all goes back to what are you trying to learn and how well do you really
know the customer.

------
marnor28
In the Lean Startup you described Aardvark tested several different business
concepts, before choosing one in the end. Do you know how they dealt with the
possible need to pivot versus focusing the team's resources on one single
product? Or have any other advice in terms of focus versus testing different
products?

~~~
eries
It was totally obvious that Aardvark was a better product than the previous
ones they had tested. They could feel it in their bones once customers started
using it. I do think it's possible to quantify that result, but it's almost
always unnecessary if you are able to step out of your own reality distortion
field.

------
wellboy
Great that you're doing an AMA!

I'm a big fan if the concept of the MVP, however, having build 30+ apps and
spoken with hundreds of founders how to buils their product, I have seen a lot
of people struggling with the terminology of the MvP.

From the top of my head, 40% of founders are confused by the viable in the
MVP. Furthermore, every time I explain the MVP, I catch myself having to
explain that the MVP doesn't mean a crappy product, viable means having very
few features, but having those few few features work really well.

Now that the term MVP has been out for 8 years, and so many people still build
crappy products, despite all the knowledge around it, is it maybe not the
right terminology?

I've thought a lot about this, and from what I've seen, building an MVP means
building a product that is very, very basic, but that users would love,
because this product can test a hypothesis. What do you think of the term
Minimum Lovable Product, because from my point of view, this terminology
encompasses everything that the MVP tries to define, without the bad stuff or
the confusion.

Hope that all made sense, thanks a lot.

~~~
eries
People have the ability to willfully misunderstand any concept, no matter what
it's called. That said, if MLP is a better term, I'd gladly adopt it. Go prove
it.

~~~
tjwizking
More like Minimum Sellable Product. Well done Eric. Your work has improved our
odds for success. Grateful for TLS. - Proud evangelist.

------
veritas3241
What is your experience with the NSF I-Corps program? Do you know of anyone
who has gone through the program and then built a successful company
afterwords?

Link for those who are unfamiliar.
[https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/i-corps/](https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/i-corps/)

~~~
eries
That's really Steve Blank's domain, but we just had lunch and he filled me in.
It sounds absolutely incredible.

~~~
veritas3241
Thanks for the reply! I start the program next week and based on the paperwork
and conversations I've had it seems like it will be a massive amount of work
with potentially massive returns on my time investment.

------
apoorva09
How does Lean model work in case of marketplace? Should you first get good
amount of sellers on board before opening the beta version as marketplace ?

~~~
eries
Nope, that's almost certain to fail. Why should sellers join if there are no
buyers? And if you do convince them, how can you ensure that they will have a
good experience on launch day?

The only way to test a marketplace is to get a small number of highly-
interconnected buyers and sellers to transact in low volume by hand. Think
eBay and beanie babies or Facebook just on the Harvard campus. Read PG's
[http://paulgraham.com/ds.html](http://paulgraham.com/ds.html) for more.

~~~
scardine
In the case of the startup I'm working for, they will join because of the
reputation of the founder. His father was such a successful entrepreneur that
people will jump over anything with his name. Of course it will not prevent
the business to fail miserably, but nobody will listen to me anyway - when I
started working here I gave him a copy of your book, but I'm sure it is was
stashed somewhere unread. :-)

------
jcchin41
I work for a large aerospace company. How can we adopt lean startup ideas for
hardware projects where the design iterations are much more expensive and lead
times more severe?

~~~
eries
Ask Corey Nelson:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkdsYTlEGfQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkdsYTlEGfQ)

It all depends on what you are trying to learn. What has to be true in order
for your new product or project to succeed? How can you find that out cheaply
and quickly? And what if you chose tools for speed of testing rather than
efficiency of production?

I've been amazed how many hardware and industrial companies have been able to
adopt lean startup, even in situations I would have previously thought
impossible.

------
larrys
I'd be curious what the equivalent idea of what you are doing (by posting here
as AMA) would be if you weren't Eric Ries posting on HN. So for Eric Ries this
is "lean" (or what used to be known as "gorilla marketing") but for someone
who doesn't have name recognition what is the equivalent? [1]

[1] Simply recognizing that someone without name recognition doing something
similar on HN is not assured of getting any attention.

~~~
eries
Let's be honest: I almost didn't make the front page. My post got to about #25
on /newest with only like 9 upvotes. If it had rolled over to page two, I
doubt I would still be answering questions right now. So no, I don't think
this kind of technique is useful for marketing if you don't have name
recognition.

However, there are many other ways to build rep in a community like HN without
being famous. I bet if any of the highest-karma posters did an AMA they would
get a lot of attention. Personally, I'd be fascinated to learn more about who
they are.

~~~
larrys
My personal feeling is that the high karma that you are speaking of is not a
good use of time (for that reason). I know it has helped tptacek and some
others but it takes considerable time (and is a distraction) to comment on HN
and essentially if you do it, you do it for fun and to learn. And if something
comes from it then that's icing on the cake.

I actually picked up a considerable amount of side consulting by being a
regular commenter on a well known blog. While I make money from that side
consulting (near 6 figures), it's actually a drain on how I make money in
other ways. It almost doesn't pay (but it's fun). [1] However the time it took
me to earn enough of a reputation which led (in an indirect way) to the
consulting (and contacts) was really a poor use of my time.

A better idea time wise, to jump start reputation, and build a rep (in a
community like HN if that is what you are trying to do) would be to attempt to
do things that are remarkable and get attention. Then people might talk about
you and you will have the reputation that you seek that will bring other
things that you need.

[1] I also get to meet many interesting people and contacts as well.

~~~
tptacek
Being an active participant on HN has been very helpful to me professionally.
HN karma, on the other hand, has not. The only thing that ever came from karma
for me was a TechCrunch interview about HN.

There are great commenters who are very well-known who don't rank anywhere on
the leaderboard. 'pbsd is a well-known cryptographer. 'tzs is the best
commenter on HN. 'carbocation is a doctor/medical researcher.

Being engaged and available is important. The leaderboard is a really warped
assessment of that. HN should get rid of it, along with the whole karma
system.

An easy start: continue scoring comments, but stop revealing per-user karma
totals.

I don't think anyone needs an AMA from me or Patrick McKenzie. The Ries AMA is
interesting because he isn't a regular, and has interesting things to say.

~~~
larrys
Agree and would also get rid of grayed out comments that are down voted.

"I don't think anyone needs an AMA from me"

Actually I would find that fascinating.

~~~
tptacek
I'm pretty sure HN has already asked me anything worth knowing about me.
Except maybe "how much does NSA pay you to shill for them on HN". ($39.54/wk)

~~~
pen2l
Matasano Security, the company you founded, was acquired by NCC Group for $13
million in cash. You probably saw a good chunk of that money, and one would
assume you'd be well off enough to not work for $39.54/wk. Why do it anyway?

~~~
tptacek
I guess I just love my country.

------
funkyy
[http://bit.ly/theleadersguide+](http://bit.ly/theleadersguide+) \- nice,
seems like you have got few hundred of visits thanks to this in last 2 hours.
This is actually handy when estimating what impact front page have on products
featured here.

~~~
eries
Hey that's cool. I completely forgot about that feature of bitly.

~~~
mox1
If you want to track click stats but don't want to make it public, try my
"lean startup" \- [http://taveo.net/](http://taveo.net/)

I usually describe it as bit.ly + Google analytics.

------
Stephn_R
What do you think has changed the most for startups today since when you wrote
"The Lean Startup"?

~~~
eries
It's a whole new world. It reminds me a bit of 2007, but even more intense.
And although I wasn't in Silicon Valley in 1999, it has some of those
overtones, too.

But the biggest change is not in all that noise, it's in the fact that
entrepreneurial know-how is widely available. When I first started blogging in
2008, there weren't that many startup blogs. Almost no VCs blogged. YC was
just beginning and PG's essays were about many different topics, with startups
appearing only rarely.

Now new founders are swimming in a sea of knowledge that was previously
considered esoteric. I think we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg of what
will happen to the global economy now that the genie is out of the bottle.
(mixing metaphors a wee bit)

------
0xdeadbeefbabe
Thanks Eric, I really enjoyed the Lean Startup. I'm an engineer, and I like to
work on valuable and interesting problems.

1\. What do you do when your market is so small that you can't grab some
teenager off the street to try your product? I'm thinking of the people who
buy X-ray machines for the airport, for example.

2\. I know people who pretend to like ideas from your book. One guy applauds
the idea of failing while also failing to do validated learning. Can you or I
or anyone fix that? For example, we'll never test weather a user would prefer
an interface other than a website.

3\. How do I convince my boss that we need a research department?

4\. Have you read Dealers of Lightning (about Xerox Parc) what is your take on
it?

~~~
eries
1\. Just wrote a little about this:
[http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2015/04/getting-
feedbac...](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2015/04/getting-feedback-
from-customers-when.html)

2\. I know so many people like that. I'll tell you a funny story. Back in 2005
a certain VC wanted to invest in our company and said, "I'm a huge Steve Blank
fan! Also, where's your Market Requirements Document?" I fear it may be an
incurable condition.

3\. Convince yourself, then show her the evidence. Most times "boss
persuasion" is really code for "I don't have proof this is a good idea, just a
vague intuition."

4\. I have it on my shelf but haven't yet had a chance to read it. I did a
talk there a few years ago and got to spend some time learning their history.
It's pretty wild.

------
16bytes
Hi Eric! I enjoyed "The Lean Startup" and I think the approach for the new
book is very interesting.

Besides establishing the backer-only discussion community, what other lean
methodologies are you using to write this book?

Along those lines, have there been any significant pivots yet? Obviously, the
kickstarter seems to be doing well at over 3.5x pledged over the goal. Do you
think that this is validation of the new content that the book promises to
deliver or is it simply riding the coat-tails of the previous success you had
with "The Lean Startup"? How are you measuring success?

I only now noticed that there's also a Reddit AMA, apologies if you've
answered in that thread already.

~~~
eries
Good question and hard to do justice to it. The Kickstarter is an MVP in
several ways:

1\. It's a good test of the value prop for the new book 2\. The Leader's Guide
gives me a chance to test out ideas from the new book and make sure they work
(amazing to me how many business books skip this step!) 3\. I've learned a ton
about book marketing in 2015 that's going to help inform the launch of the new
book 4\. There's a big difference between "customers want this" as a general
statement and "these 7000 customers paid for this" which is a much richer
dataset 5\. The community part of the campaign will be a testbed for a lot
more experimentation.

------
dsbabbar
What books do you recommend, for people who are very new to entrepreneurship
and stratups?

~~~
eries
TBH, don't read books, go start something. Then, when you're totally baffled
by what's happening, use books to try and understand why.

Now, since you're probably not going to take my advice, I think a new book
that you'll find helpful would be Startup Opportunities
[https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Opportunities-Know-When-
Quit/...](https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Opportunities-Know-When-
Quit/dp/1941018009/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=lessolearn01-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=NKVQ5HYCNYT2APQK&creativeASIN=1941018009)

I also recently curated a list of classic startup books on Product Hunt:
[http://www.producthunt.com/ericries/collections/classic-
star...](http://www.producthunt.com/ericries/collections/classic-startup-
books)

~~~
dsbabbar
Thanks a lot Eric, I will surely take your first advise (with a small
deviation), in fact I read a lot and sometimes feel overloaded with
information and not knowing what to do with it. I guess I'll restrict my
reading time to 15-20 minutes a day apart from the reading I have to do while
researching on a particular problem. I guess this would be right for me.

------
aflex
Hi Eric, I just started reading your "Lean Startup" book and as I understand
the main thing is to validate the idea and build out MVP before building out
features that people might not even need.

I am a software engineer and have an idea of building a marketplace to connect
brands to instagram users that have a large amount of followers. Sort of like
AirBNB for for instagram which can expand into other social media as well. How
would you validate this idea "Lean start up" style before coding it. How would
you get users and brands on board?

------
soneill24
I'm a huge fan, Eric! Thank you for doing this. My question is of a more
personal nature. When you were in your mid-20s, what were your career goals?
Have they changed (if so, how drastically)?

~~~
eries
Drastically is an understatement! I was 25 when I co-founded IMVU. My goals at
that time were to become an excellent technical founder, CTO, and maybe even a
startup CEO someday.

Looking back, I think if YC had existed, I almost certainly would have
applied. But nothing like that existed back then and so I wound up making my
own mistakes and then writing about them.

~~~
larrys
"so I wound up making my own mistakes "

I've always thought that it's not entirely good idea to not make your own
mistakes. While painful it provides a better gut than simply being told or
reading about things and getting quick answers.

You know in traditional businesses there is a reason that even in many cases
family members (in family businesses) spend time at the bottom before they are
put into higher level positions. It gives you a chance to see exactly why and
how things are done and to experience them and fully understand nuance. Things
that can't be learned in school or passed by anecdote.

------
bicdode
I understand and appreciate your approach that the best way to work on growth-
engine-topics using lean startup way is by utilising fully dedicated teams in
sandboxes. But if you were working for a corporate-client (as a methodology-
champion), who is not in the position to assign even one dedicated team yet
(instead: 14 volunteers (working in their normal full-day job) distributed
across 5 sandboxes), how would you facilitate the work of the sandbox-teams?

~~~
eries
Well the first thing to think about is: are you in a position to tell your
client the truth, which is that this is not going to work. A giant part-time
committee isn't going to accomplish this kind of work.

If you can tell the truth, try to win the argument now, before it's too late.

But not everyone is so lucky. If for whatever reason, you can't tell the
client the truth, you're not totally doomed. What I would look for is an
opportunity to make a trade with the various middle managers involved in this
situation. Try to ask for fewer, but more dedicated, resources. In most
corporate situations, nobody ever asks for less money, smaller teams, less
authority. But you'd rather have a dedicated team of 5 than 14 volunteers.

~~~
bicdode
Thank you very much for this advice. Until I can play this card how I act
currently as methodology-champion is that I pre-think/pre-work/"pre-cook"
every working step for every sandbox-team. So the volunteers do not need to
start from zero - they get everything prepared, comment it and thus can get
good quality results out of their work - even on a slow pace do to long
intervals between meetings. What do you think about this? Can this work for
the first BML-feedback loop per sandbox?

~~~
eries
I hate to be a downer, but I'm not very optimistic that this will work. The
limiting factor is that you can't learn for another human being, they have to
do it themselves.

Maybe you can ask a few of the volunteers to join you for an extra-curricular
set of meetings, like over a weekend, to try and give them a tiny taste of
acting like a real startup.

~~~
bicdode
Thank you so much for your honest advice. I will try to include this into my
work and talk to my client. Great that you do AMAs these days. I very much
appreciate it!

------
Avalaxy
Eric is most probably no longer reading this, but I'm really curious what he
thinks about landing pages. A lot of startups use them as their MVP nowadays,
but I think they are doomed to fail because you have nothing to present to
your potential customers.

I'm also wondering what his thoughts are on what the best ways to drive good
traffic to a MVP are, without getting biased stats (by inviting all your
friends and family for example).

------
marnor28
Hi Eric, our startup is hosting live video AMAs with entrepreneurs. Would you
be interested in hosting a session at
[http://talkingnext.io/](http://talkingnext.io/)? We actually have an event
scheduled for tonight with Raj Singh from Dronecast at 5PM EST if you want to
check it out live.

~~~
eries
Sounds cool. Email me (it's right on my blog).

~~~
marnor28
Will do!

------
gdilla
Hi Eric,

Your first mass produced book was published by a traditional, 'big' publisher
(Crown/Random House). Is this new book an independent effort or are you still
working with a trade publisher? Do you feel they've added value to the process
for what you got the first time (versus self publishing and retaining more
revenue per sale)?

~~~
eries
The new book (codenamed The Startup Way) will be traditionally published just
like TLS. I already have a book contract and everything.

The Leader's Guide is the MVP, that will only be available via Kickstarter. In
fact, my book contract specifies that TLG cannot be sold at retail in stores
or online.

I'm a very happy author, and the traditional process did well by me. But it
doesn't work for everyone. In fact, it's a lot like VC: good if you know what
you're doing but dangerous if you approach it naively.

------
bicdode
Are you planning to setup a program for consultants, advisors or trainers to
get certified on the-lean-startup-approach?

~~~
eries
No.

------
joeyspn
Hi Erik! good to see you here... What do you think about Design-Driven
Innovation? [0] Do you think that it represents an _alternative_ valid method
for launching startups?

[0]
[http://www.designdriveninnovation.com/](http://www.designdriveninnovation.com/)

------
0hn0
Hi Eric, thanks for an AMA.

I build a startup for entrepreneurs who want to create a web or mobile app
with no programming experience. For example you can create a wordpress clone
or more complex apps like CRM without coding knowledge. Or you can buy an app
and you can modify it for your needs.

Can you give me some advice?

------
jasondavis
With today's trends of massive series A rounds, how should entrepreneurs think
about staying lean with so much pressure to go big and a prevailing winner-
take-all mentality within the VC world? Moreover, what's your take on the
series A mega-round?

~~~
eries
Hilariously the HBO show Silicon Valley had a pretty decent take on this last
night: just take less money. There's no law that says you have to slurp up as
much dumb money as the market will throw at you.

But regardless of how much money you take, lean is about a disciplined process
of decision making. Can you build a culture of high-tempo testing and make it
stick not just for the founders but for all employees? That really has nothing
to do with how much money you take.

------
micearoni
I admire your untraditional, lean approach to publishing your followup book,
but know it doesn't work for everyone and certainly not for straight-up
copycats. What promotional advice do you have for an author who isn't as well-
known as you?

~~~
eries
Treat publishing like you would any industry you're thinking of entering as a
startup. Talk to authors, editors, publicists, anyone who will talk to you.
Don't take their word for "how things work" just gather info and plot your own
path. And don't feel bad about copying liberally - I studies Tim Ferriss and
straight-up borrowed many of his techniques.

------
xanmas
I was wondering if you had any advice for hardware startups?

I'm currently exploring the idea of integrated-circuit spectroscopy, and have
the physics/simulations down but the capital required to fabricate the chips
and iterate on the designs is quite high.

------
marnor28
Are there any particular skills or traits that you looked for in your startup
co-founders?

~~~
eries
Well, because I hadn't read the excellent book Founder's Dilemmas, I didn't
have a clue about what to look for. Honestly, the biggest criteria was that
they were willing to work with me!

~~~
marnor28
Ok, I'll check it out.

------
bicdode
In THE LEADER'S GUIDE, will you also make available business tools you suggest
for lean-startup project? A bit comparable to what Alex Osterwalder &
strategyzer is offering it (Canvas, Test&Learning Cards, Progress Board,
etc.)?

~~~
eries
No, I will not. I am not yet sold on the tools approach to lean startup
adoption. It's not to say I am opposed to it, but I haven't really seen it
work in companies. I prefer prose: convincing people to try it and letting
them build their own tools.

------
solve
How important do you feel it is for a startup to move to, or at least
fundraise in SV?

~~~
eries
I'm conflicted. Personally, I think SV is a magical place and that's why I
live here. OTOH, it's also a very fad-driven place and some people get
distracted by the noise. Plus, there are clearly many other startup hubs where
founders can thrive these days.

So, as a citizen of the USA: come here, help make us great As a citizen of the
world: transform your city into a startup hub

I guess what I'm saying is there is some truth to the saying that "Silicon
Valley is a state of mind" and also some truth to the saying "that sounds
great but a lot of the money is on Sand Hill Road."

~~~
solve
Is it investors that attracts startups to a city, or startups that attract
investors to a city, or something else?

Everyone I've heard talking about transforming cities into startup hubs,
always frames it as "make some good startups and everything else will come."

~~~
eries
It's a classic two-sided market problem. If you just make great startups,
won't they migrate to a better startup hub when they have enough traction to
do so? I think it's about creating a true startup community where people want
to stay and reinvest in the next generation. Brad Feld wrote a whole book
about it, btw.

------
Simorgh
Why do you think that 'the establishment' is so hard to innovate within?

~~~
eries
It's actually very simple: most established organizations adopt processes
designed to eradicate innovation. If you study management history it's pretty
easy to see why they did this, since there were huge gains in the 20th century
to be had by eliminating variability in both manufacturing and human
resources. Consistency, standardization, and commodification all paid huge
dividends.

Unfortunately, not all sources of variability are bad. Think about the
antibiotic craze as an analogy. It was a major discovery that bacteria cause
disease. But it was also a major discovery that certain bacteria are
beneficial. Loading up your system with antibiotics 24/7 is actually
detrimental to long-term health, even though it's awfully helpful during an
appendectomy.

~~~
boomzilla
Is it the same as the 'Agile' approach that is so prevalent in software
industry these days that aims to deliver software reliably on time?

How do you differentiate good variability from bad ones in software
development?

~~~
eries
Now _that_ is a good question. Most agile systems are designed to insulate
management from the volatility inherent in software development (and to tamp
it down a little bit). They aren't really designed to exploit the positive
variability.

Here's a classic example: let's say I have a story card that says "build a
feature that lets 10000 customers buy a widget from our store." In most
classic agile systems, the engineering team will do their best to understand
the customer requirement and see that it's built appropriately.

Now let's say that 0 customers show and buy the widget. Who's fault is this?
In traditional agile, it's the Product Owner's fault, not the engineering
team.

But exploiting positive variability would say: the effort required to build
this feature requires knowing in advance how many customers want to buy the
widget. The engineering effort is totally different if the answer is 0, 10,
100, 10000, or 1000000 customers. So rather than build the feature as
specified, let's do an experiment to try and assess customer demand first,
then build in response to that demand.

That means that sometimes a story will take 10X longer than you originally
planned and sometimes it will take 1/10th as long. But in the end, you'll get
a better business result. That's positive variability.

------
im3w1l
I hear some complaints from academia, at least in my country - don't know if
it's valid globally, that they are being more and more regulated and spend too
much time applying for grants.

Do you have any opinion on that?

------
dalys
What does your book writing process look like now? What did you learn writing
The Lean Startup and how much of the teachings of the lean concept itself are
applicable to book writing?

Cheers! /Martin

~~~
eries
I think they are very applicable. During the writing process for TLS I spent
an absolute metric ton of time testing, iterating, workshopping and trying to
make sure that:

1) the value proposition for the book was right and 2) that the book actually
lived up to that value proposition

I am convinced the book would not have been a blockbuster without that work.

Now the tools are so much better. Kickstarter allows me to do this testing and
iteration in a much bigger and more public way - and that's just the start.
Now that I have a 7000+ community of people who are going on the journey with
me, I have a built-in place to test concepts and make sure that what I'm
recommending is actually effective.

------
zsimmons
Hi Eric, Your last book inspired our own startup
[http://www.discuss.io](http://www.discuss.io). Discuss.io provides marketers
on-demand webcam interviews with millions of potential consumers. We help
marketers from startups to the fortune 500 "get out of the building" and get
user stories BEFORE they code. I would love to get your feedback on what you
have built. I'll set you up with a free account if you ping help@discuss.io

------
JohnLen
This is the book that really gives me lots of motivation and ideas. A great
book to train yourself to be an entrepreneur.

------
rajacombinator
Good AMA! Enjoyed your non-canned responses.

~~~
eries
Thanks!

------
fiatjaf
Why don't you hear more classical music? What's in the new bands that Bach
doesn't have?

~~~
eries
Am-C-D-F

------
ripitrust
Hi Eric Glad you are writing new books So they will not be available thru
Amazon or local bookstores?

~~~
eries
The Leader's Guide is only available on Kickstarter and only for a few more
hours. It can't be sold in stores or at retail, so this is the only way to get
it.

The next book - the sequel to The Lean Startup - will come out in 2016 or 2017
and will be traditionally published.

------
Divyansh
How important do you think is formal college education in the life of an
entrepreneur?

~~~
eries
I think a liberal arts education is one of the greatest gifts a parent can
give their child (thanks, Mom & Dad!). That said, there's clearly plenty of
people who are able to succeed without formal schooling. And, for that matter,
there's plenty of people who got the fancy degree and didn't expand their
minds at all while they were there.

I think the more important thing is to become deeply curious and well educated
about how the world works. I don't see how to do that without a grounding in
history, philosophy, psychology, literature, etc. but there are many ways to
get that grounding besides formal schooling.

------
LoRaBlood
Did you anticipate the kickstarter campaign would be so successful?

~~~
eries
Not even remotely. Even a week ago I didn't think we'd pass 500k.

------
RevBio
What's the fastest you've launched a startup?

~~~
eries
When I was working on IMVU, we almost killed ourselves launching in only six
months. At the time, we thought that was pretty impressive because our
previous startup had taken almost 5 years. But by today's standards, we were
incredibly slow.

This may sound pedantic, but it kind of depends on what you mean by "launch"
and what you mean by "startup." If you take something like CapTable.io, it
only took a few weeks to get the initial version up and running although most
people probably don't consider it "launched" at all.

~~~
RevBio
I was talking about time to paying customers. Your distinction isn't pedantic
at all - there's a big difference between something that requires physical R&D
& a services platform. I'm doing biotech & I think 6 mo is incredibly fast.

~~~
eries
Of course. The key is to learn as quickly as possible within the constraints
of the medium you're working in. I've worked with startups that launched an
MVP in days for $10 and ones that have spent more than a year and $10M+ to
make the MVP.

But here's a spooky though I'll leave you with. Often times, when startups are
looking at their tools they will say: given the tools I have, the fastest I
can build an MVP is X. But if you really take the criticality of learning
seriously, you might say: given my desire to learn quickly, what tools can I
use to go faster?

And that's where a lot of breakthroughs happen, when you choose tools and
platforms not based solely on their technical capabilities, but by their speed
of iteration. (It's probably why Facebook was built on PHP.)

------
pitt1980
t

