Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works Author: Visit Amazon's Ash Maurya Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1449305172 | Format: PDF
Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works Description
Amazon.com Review
Exclusive Interview with Ash Maurya, Author of Running Lean
Q. Why is your book "Running Lean" especially important now?
We live at a time where we have so much power at our fingertips, where we are building more products than ever before. But the odds of building successful products haven't gone up. We're simply building more stuff nobody wants. What we need is a systematic process for quickly vetting and building successful products. That is the promise of "Running Lean."
Q. What is the top reason startups fail?
Most startups fail, not because they fail to build the product they want to build, but they fail to find a market for their product before running out of resources.
Q. What reason do you attribute for this failure?
Entrepreneurs are typically most passionate about their solution and often spend a disproportionate amount of time perfecting their solution only to find they were optimizing something nobody wanted.
Q. What do founders need to start doing now in order to achieve success?
The first step is shifting their mindset. The "true product" of a startup is not the solution, but the business model. Once founders start thinking of the business model as "the product," they start prioritizing risks differently. The key to building a successful product is maximizing learning about what's riskiest per unit time. Sometimes that's the underlying solution, but often times it's not.
Q. Describe the top tactical technique for systematically building a startup in today's economy?
A core part of the process is identifying what's riskiest and then doing the smallest thing possible to test that risk. From this principle you can derive specific tactics to fit your particular product. For instance, in the book I argue that you can initially test a lot of what's risky without building the product first using proxies like customer interviews, mockups, and videos.
Review
"Ash has put together a book I wish I'd read before pursuing my own startup. The level of detail, including case studies and practical applications, make this book a resource worthy of sitting on every aspiring entrepreneur's shelf."-Rand Fishkin, CEO and Cofounder, SEOmoz; Coauthor, The Art of SEO
"Ash has laid out a clear compass for anyone to validate their ideas, solve real problems and create a successful business. I'd encourage this book to anyone trying to get a business off the ground."
- Noah Kagan, Chief Sumo of AppSumo.com
"Lean concepts are exciting but it's hard to know what to actually do. Ash not only gives advice but makes it practicable--this is the first comprehensive guidebook for how to execute a Lean Startup."
- Jason Cohen, founder of WP Engine & Smart Bear.
"Ash provides compelling, actionable guidance for applying lean principles to a startup. His startup canvas changed the way I think about my own startup. This book is a valuable guide whether you are a serial entrepreneur or a first time founder."
- Sean Ellis, Founder & CEO of CatchFree
"Easily one of the best technical books on Lean Startup ever written. Period. End of point. Done."
- Dan Martell, Founder of Clarity.fm & Angel Investor
See all Editorial Reviews
- Series: Lean Series
- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 2 edition (March 6, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1449305172
- ISBN-13: 978-1449305178
- Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.5 x 0.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
This book is a concise guide that helps you take immediate action in using lean startup and customer development principles. More simply, as the subtitle states, it shows you how to "Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works". The book opens with a brief chapter on the principles behind Lean Startup and Customer Development. For each chapter after that, Ash describes what you will learn, shows you clearly what you need to do, and what decisions you need to make.
The book's chapters are:
Introduction
1. Meta-Principles
2. Running Lean Illustrated
3. Create Your Lean Canvas
4. Prioritize Where to Start
5. Get Ready to Experiment
6. Get Ready to Interview Customers
7. The Problem Interview
8. The Solution Interview
9. Get to Release 1.0
10. Get Ready to Measure
11. The MVP Interview
12. Validate Customer Life Cycle
13. Don't Be a Feature Pusher
14. Measure Product/Market Fit
15. Conclusion
Appendix - Bonus Material - comments and insights on topics including: building a slow burn startup, thoughts on premature funding, achieving flow, pricing models, teaser and landing pages, sales letters, continuous deployment, conversion dashboards
Throughout the book, Ash shows when and how to use methods for activities like: business model planning, interviewing customers, setting up tests for hypotheses, pricing, determining your Minimum Viable Product (MVP), forming hypotheses and conducting tests.
The book isn't just theory.
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