
Lessons Learned: The Lean Startup Book is here - tathagatadg
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2011/07/lean-startup-book-is-here.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+startup%2Flessons%2Flearned+%28Lessons+Learned%29&utm_content=Twitter
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staunch
I can't shake the huckster vibe I get from the "The Lean Startup movement"
that Eric Ries so often reminds people he started.

He seems determined to profit (through this book and his conference) by
rebranding some principles that have been popular in the valley for a long
time.

I can't think of anyone I respect on entrepreneurship that doesn't practice it
themselves. Writing books and doing conferences doesn't count in my book.

Sorry, I think I have a bit off an allergic reaction to things that feel even
vaguely like Tony Robbins.

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mechanical_fish
_I can't think of anyone I respect on entrepreneurship that doesn't practice
it themselves._

Me neither, but perhaps you were asleep during the part of the program where
Eric Ries:

A) worked at at least one startup that _exploded on impact with the market in
spectacular fashion_ ,

B) learned some lessons from that,

C) co-founded IMVU and made a bunch of money?

Ries may have faults, but a complete lack of practice does not appear to be
among them.

As for your allergy to salesmanship: Reticence sells nothing.

I wish Ries luck in leveraging the awesome psychological powers of branding
and the publishing hype cycle to get his ideas in front of more people. I know
I've lost years of _my_ time to management who had apparently never heard of
these ideas.

~~~
staunch
IIRC he was at IMVU for only the first few years. Mostly before the company
grew. Regardless I don't see how that single historical piece of
entrepreneurial experience translates into a three item list.

I don't think it's his relative lack of experience that I have a problem with
so much as the conscious effort he's making to become a "guru" that sells
picks to the miners.

~~~
patio11
For what it's worth: I don't live in Silicon Valley. My routine dinner company
does not include investors or people working on startups. Eric Ries has over
the last several years demonstrated his credibility to me on his blog by
teaching me things which, on multiple occasions, I was able to implement to
dramatic effect in my own business.

Want a concrete example? He had a post, years ago, on why A/B testing needs to
be a one-liner or you will never do it. That resonated with me, strongly, and
that became _the_ design brief for A/Bingo. I prioritized that feature over
pretty much everything else in my implementation, and it is a major part of
the reason why it works for me. Some years later I'm considered somewhat of an
authority on the subject (funny how that works), and when I go in to companies
to work with them on A/B testing, the best single process improvement we get
-- and we get it virtually without fail -- is going from "A/B testing takes a
bunch of work with logging into a product from a large multinational
advertising agency, filling out a few forms, and copy/pasting up the wazoo --
and as a consequence we did three A/B tests a year ago and haven't done
anything since" to "our engineers put in the A/B tests themselves
automatically because it is easier than not doing it."

By the way, as it regards picks and miners: it takes a special kind of mind to
see publishing a book as a route to fame and fortune on the backs of the
little guy if one is also capable of, say, consulting on A/B testing.

~~~
staunch
Some people say Tim Ferris helps them in similar ways. Little tips that push
you into doing things you already knew you should doing.

They probably both offer some value by packaging existing ideas in more
palatable ways. If you don't mind the motivations and style (like I do) you
can probably extract some benefit. It's just not for me.

 _Reply to your edit:_ You must not be aware of how much money conferences can
make to not see the profit motive there. Even moderately successful tech
conferences can generate millions per year. Far better than a consulting
business. It takes time to build up to that of course. Publishing a book is
Conference Building 101.

~~~
econgeeker
There's a huge difference between Tim Ferris and Eric Ries. If you made these
charges against Ferris, I'd agree with you. Ferris is constantly self
promoting, and attempting to cultivate a cult of personality. I know what Tim
Ferris looks like because his mug is on everything he does.

I have no clue what Eric looks like. I find Eric makes suggestions that are
far less obvious than Ferris. I find that Eric promotes his _ideas_ over
himself.

The accusation that this is all just "existing ideas" is kinda silly, given
how infrequently this perspective existed even in cutting edge circles like
"Hacker News" even a couple years ago.

It has started getting traction, this is true, but 5 years ago, it was a
radical idea, and 3 years ago, there were very few practitioners and 2 years
ago it wasn't even a movement.

In fact, I strongly suspect that Reis is the source of the ideas that Ferris
used in his book.

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jmathes
> I have no clue what Eric looks like

Here you go:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=eric+ries&tbm=isch](http://www.google.com/search?q=eric+ries&tbm=isch)

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patio11
I don't generally buy business books, but I've had this one pre-ordered for
forever.

~~~
eries
Thanks!

~~~
colson04
I've also had mine pre-ordered for several months now - looking forward to it!
Will there be an epub format to download to my nook?

~~~
eries
You'll have to order the ebook version separately. You can pre-order it on
Kindle right now.

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dangrossman
I pre-ordered this from AppSumo's Lean Startup Bundle way back in October...
I've been looking forward to this book for a long time!

~~~
eries
Thank you!

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dreamdu5t
Best Advice: Stop listening to people selling advice. Stop buying their books.

Instead, go do it. Stop fucking talking about it. Just do it.

~~~
MartinCron
That's a false dichotomy, isn't it? Can't you just do it and take a moment to
read books and listen to people who have done it and are determined to move
the state of the art forward?

I "just do it" and read books, so I know it can be done.

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danberger
Eric has done so much for the startup community..... and so much for me in
helping me understand how to build a better startup. The least I can do is
pre-order his book. Done.

~~~
eries
thank you

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arturadib
(This review is about the "lean methodology" in general, not the book).

I would like to echo and add to some of the criticisms here.

I've attended a few lean startup conferences and read several articles by Mr.
Ries as well as Mr. Blank's book. While I believe there are some interesting
ideas here and there and also generally a lot of societal value in encouraging
entrepreneurs to mitigate risks early on, I think these guys are trying too
hard to create a "methodology" out of thin air.

Once you get past the few interesting ideas you can borrow for your business,
the whole thing just sounds like wishful thinking peppered with pseudo-
science.

(The difference between pseudo-science and science is rigor and empirical
evidence; many things in life "make sense", but don't stand against scrutiny
or empirical validation).

For example, while it sure _sounds_ reasonable to quantify feature/product
usage and quickly respond with rapid product iterations or maybe even a
"pivot", in practice you can never determine if the reason people are not
using your feature/product is because its execution sucks, or because people
don't care about it in general. In scientific terms, correlation isn't
causation, and it's _really_ tough to resolve the two. Get these mixed up and
you might kill a potentially big product/feature because you didn't try hard
enough in the execution.

More importantly, to the best of my knowledge none of the giants in the tech
world followed anything close to the lean methodology. That includes the
founders of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. Great entrepreneurs have
and probably will always be fueled by their beliefs, period. It's hard to
imagine Steve Jobs being lean about iPods, iPads, etc. He's failed before,
sure, but he's also pushed forward at full steam some of the most awesome and
successful products I've ever seen.

Perhaps after young Mr. Ries runs an Apple or an Amazon, or after he can back
his distracting jargons with empirical evidence I'll pay closer attention to
the movement as a general methodology. Until then, I'm perfectly happy with
simpler, more down-to-earth precedents like Greg Gianforte's "Bootstrapping
your business" (incidentally, Mr. Gianforte has founded and run a billion-
dollar company).

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aik
I am curious about this book, however unfortunately at the moment I'm sick of
the marketing efforts. There's been a bit too much book related BUY ME NOW
spam on Twitter for months and months on end.

~~~
mattcheney
If you wrote a book about a topic you were deeply passionate about, how would
you promote it?

~~~
davidw
There are many ways to do that, but interestingly enough, John Locke, one of
the big early winners from digital publishing on Amazon, suggests _not_
promoting your book heavily on twitter, at least not directly.

I'm going to write a post on the book soon, as I thought it quite interesting
in its own right, and of course it's very relevant to LiberWriter. It's worth
a read if you're at all interested in books: <http://t.co/L9XOQ6U>

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jechen
Actually heard about Eric Ries and his lean startup movement from a VC on a
booze cruise. He has a lecture series up on Udemy which I watched in one
sitting and damn was it a good investment of time. Definitely preodering this
book.

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mfieldhouse
I don't understand the negative response towards someone who is trying to make
money by improving peoples lives on a site which is focused on just that.

I find there are lessons to be learned from everyone, even the most scammy
looking of internet marketers. The hard part is to control ourselves from
having the knee-jerk reaction of rejecting the person, and just taking from
the material what we think will be useful. Or in other words, take everything
with a pinch of salt and keep an open mind.

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wtvanhest
Pre-ordered.

Reading a book like this on Kindle is more fun than reading blogs. I hope it
is as well written as your post.

<$14 is nothing if I get a single good piece of information.

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beilabs
Will there be an epub format if I get the hard copy? Shiny iPad needs some
decent books on it.

~~~
eries
Yes, the book will launch on Kindle/iBooks at the same as hardcover. You can
pre-order the Kindle version at <http://bit.ly/LeanStartupBook>

~~~
MartinCron
Thanks for making it available on Kindle right away. I just pre-ordered it.

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grk
Ugh. Why does the Kindle edition have to be more expensive? I've no interest
in having the book on paper, and shipping to Europe takes way more time than
Kindle delivery.

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swaller
Wait...so a self-proclaimed start-up guru dares to profit off of his own work?

If you run a company (and Eric Ries does too, don't forget) and you don't
spend a significant portion of your time self-promoting, if you aren't telling
everyone you know about what you're working on, and if you don't take credit
for your product being the best thing since the iPod, then you're probably not
going to do very well.

I am looking forward to reading his book and excited for it, but he's not an
magic oracle or a god. Your own success will still come from how well you do
(or don't) you apply his (and every other author's) lessons to your own
business.

Keep up the good work, Eric.

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bsmith
Pre-ordered. It's time to dilute all the Seth Godin on my bookshelf a little
bit.

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hammock
I will probably go to the bookstore and read it one afternoon

