The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets

by Brant Cooper, Brant Cooper, Patrick Vlaskovits

You are not a Visionary... yet.

The Lean Entrepreneur shows you how to become one.

Most of us believe entrepreneurial visionaries are born, not made. Our media glorify business outliers like Bezos, Branson, Gates, and Jobs as heroes with X-ray vision who can look to the future, see clearly what will be, imagine a fully formed product or experience and then, simply make the vision real.

Many in our entrepreneur community still believe that to be visionary, we must merely execute on a seemingly good idea and ignore all doubt. With this mindset, companies build doomed products in a vacuum; enterprises make ill-fated innovation investment decisions; and employees and shareholders come along for an uncomfortable ride.

Falling prey to the Myth of the Visionary confuses talented entrepreneurs, product managers, innovators and investors. It leads us to heartbreaking, costly and preventable failures in new product and venture development.

The Lean Entrepreneur moves us beyond this myth. It combines powerful customer insight, rapid experimentation and easily actionable data from the Lean Startup methodology to empower individuals, companies, and entire teams to evolve their vision, solve problems, and create value at the speed of the Internet.

Anyone can be visionary. The Lean Entrepreneur shows you how to:


Apply actionable tips, tricks and hacks from successful lean entrepreneurs. Leverage the Innovation Spectrum to disrupt existing markets and create new ones. Drive strategies for efficient market testing with Minimal Viable Products. Engage customers with Viability Testing and radically reduce time and budget for product development. Rapidly create cross-functional innovation teams that devour roadblocks and set new benchmarks. Bring your organization critical focus on the power of loyal customers and valuable products you can build to serve them. Leverage instructive tools, skill-building exercises, and worksheets along with bonus online videos.

Genres: Business, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Nonfiction, Management, Leadership, Self Help

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 9, 2012

Reviews

[Marcus Solberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Building on Eric Ries' The Lean Startup. Not much new ideas, but rather re-iterations, case studies and further discussions about the concepts already laid out in The Lean Startup.

[Marcin Boruchowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of discussions and examples help me understand lean startup more.
Written in a clear, easy-to-understand language that I could get my head around.
I recommend to everyone specially startups to read this book and learn how to get success.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good book. What did it say? Not sure, but I think the basic argument is if you don’t have a background in tech then you’re done for.

[Tõnu Vahtra · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you are not learning you are not being a Lean Entrepreneur. Startups have to keep searching for the sufficient Product - Market fit and adapt/transform until it is reached.

Some interesting ideas and takeaways but generally not revolutionary book, also should had read the "Lean Startup" before that one most probably.

“A Start Up is an institution designed to thrive in the soil of extreme uncertainty”

Driving forces to starting a new business:

*Segment—you want to bring any kind of product for a specific group (or groups) of people.
*Problem—you want to solve a particular issue or address a specific passion.
*Product—you have a singular product vision.
*Technology—you have an invention you wish to productize.
*Sales Channel—you are great at selling or are committed to e-commerce.

"…the process of segmenting your market is one of the most poorly understood concepts in today’s business startup world, yet as we can see, it is one of the most powerful"

Customer value stream lifecycle:

1. Customer becomes aware of your product
2. After learning more about the product, they become trusting
3. Next, they become convinced and buy the product
4. After purchase, they are hopeful they have bought the right product for their need
5. After some use of the product, they become satisfied
6. With help from the company, they become passionate users of the product

"By mapping the funnel, you are forced to think through one buying cycle completely for one market segment. Related activities for each step become rather self-evident and act to flesh out your marketing and sales plan and provide additional aspects to test"

First master the process of turning your initial customers into passionate customers. Next, you work on automating the movement of customers through the marketing funnel. Lastly, you do marketing activities to get as many people into the top of the funnel as possible. Learn how to master the conversion process before spending money to attract large numbers of customers.

[Vlado · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, concise with deep insights and plethora of examples. I really enjoyed the book, which in my opinion, is one of the clearest and easy to grasp on the subject of lean. It doesn't try to be something that is not. The greatest value though is in explaining the principles one must embrace to substantially increase the probability of startup success. It provides you with a concise framework to execute while not being short of the whys and whens. The illustrations are unique and enhance the reader's experience while not being too distracting or off topic.

It's a must read for everyone who considers employing the principles of lean startup and customer development.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that all entrepreneurs, product managers, CTOs (engineering managers) and marketers should read. Customer development has totally reshaped how we do product here at about.me. Its made us smarter on both the planning and execution side. Big thanks to Patrick and Brant for pulling this together. Its a must read!

Ryan Fujiu
about.me/rkf

[Brianna Silva]

Took me a while to get through this, but there was some insightful and thought-provoking content here. Biggest takeaway for me: Business is a science. Startups are experiments. This perspective has really helped me.

[André Gomes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the book with the best real world startup stories that I've read so far. Recommended.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish I liked it more. Doesn't really hold a candle to The Lean Startup and the Innovator's Dilemma. Others might find it more useful. I found it very slow reading.

[Damon · Rating 4 out of 5]

a great addition to the Lean books by Blank and Reis. Highly recommended.

[Andy Stager · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book. Tons of things to think through. Really takes the "lean" conversation to another level. Read the Lean
Startup first and then get this as soon as possible.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

felt disjointed

[Troy Tegeder · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the context was good overall, the presentation felt a bit haphazard. The main takeaway is the argument that the visionary as classically defined in business is a myth, since true success can only measurably come from data. Far more important than analyzing the data is deciding which data is worth the time to analyze. Run fast tests using he least amount of effort needed to prove concepts.

[Alimee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good supplementary read after "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries. The case studies were relatable and inspiring. However, I don't think there was a new key insight. All the concepts and tips were already mentioned in "The Lean Startup". I wish there was more to that.

I'd still recommend this book especially if you want to see how TLS is at work.

[Shirin Attia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The richness of information, disruptive ideas and concepts in this book can blow the mind of the organized reader, leading him/her to lose focus.
From my standpoint, this book would come late in the readers list for those willing to learn more about lean entrepreneurship.

[Niraj Thapa Magar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is one of the great piece to learn about the lean entrepreneurship. Generally, most of us talk about being entrepreneur but this books shows what it looks like to be the true entrepreneur in the 21st century. The case study included were really helpful to get the new insights.

[Camilo Puello]

Un gran libro, me enfoca bastante. Y resalto los temas del capítulo 4 sobre el flujo de valor, el capítulo 6 sobre experimentos, el capitulo 8 y 9 sobre organización de la startup. Recomendado volver a leer más de una vez, las veces que sea necesario

[Seif Abdelghany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book with good information about how to be lean and reduce waste in your business

[Rio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really REALLY good book!

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

Same author as The Lean Startup which I also did not enjoy. Didn't finish this, it's mostly just stream of consciousness from the author(s) without a real defined point. Boooooring.

[Greg Bae · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book that reads like a Readers Digest almanac of lean startup principles and practices. While fun and accessible, it is entirely derivative so can’t be rated more than 3 out of 5 stars.

[Ash Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Integrating the IT and value revolutions[return][return]"Man, being biological, follows biological patterns. So do man-made things." Including entrepreneurial business ventures, according to the authors. Due to a convergence of factors, from lower barriers to entry to greater access to capital, we are now seeing the beginning of an unprecedented rate of technological evolution. If they're going to keep up, business practices will have to evolve, too.[return][return]That's where The Lean Entrepreneur comes in. Cooper and Vlaskovits integrate principles from a variety of complementary sources, from traditional lean thinking, to customer development, to design thinking, all of which come down to applying the scientific method to designing your business. Using these principles, they lay out a clear path showing how to establish values and culture, identify market segments, define a value proposition and refine the value stream, interact with customers and run experiments to de-risk your business model, navigate data without drowning in it, and more.[return][return]It all adds up to the deep insight that the information technology revolution we are undergoing has been made possible by, and is helping to accelerate, an underlying value creation revolution. This creates a virtuous spiral in which, despite the continuously disruptive nature of innovation, we are increasingly better off. Or as the authors put it: "The best way to navigate the near future is to hyperfocus on creating value for customers and moving at the speed of the Internet. We'll show you how." That's what The Lean Entrepreneur is all about, and they largely live up to that promise.[return][return]Readers might also want to check out Lean Thinking and The Startup Owner's Manual for more background, and and The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves and The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science for broader perspective.[return][return]http://www.amazon.com/review/R1WH799L...

[Roberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

It started off as an online blog about agile, continuous deployment, and the lean startup methodology. Super reading, it evolved into this book, "The Lean Startup". Written by two of the "fathers" of the lean methodology/movement, Cooper and Vlaskovits (yes there's also Ries). I was happy to support the crowd-sourcing and -funding of the book when it came out and offered some feedback. Met Brant when he came to Rome. Excellent read for anyone looking to understand lean startups and their business models. Especially if you're just starting out. It's a book I go back to often.
As an "early adopter" they were also kind enough to include the names of all those early adopters in the book.
"Lean into change"!

[Klaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book belong on the shelf of all entrepreneurs and product managers. It extends the current literature on customer development with a clear set of actionable items at each stage. Some familiarity with lean development is required to get the most out of the book, but all concepts are introduced and placed into context. The book provides case studies for each chapter that reinforce the points made in the main body of the text. The illustrations are also excellent and add to the enjoy of reading the book.
I highly recommend this to people interested in practical applications of the customer development process.

[Brad Felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a hands-on, technical book for lean startup principles. This book would be my first purchase in any startup venture. The iterative learning process would be helpful for all businesses, but seems especially helpful when creating a new product or contemplating a new business model. You must realize that the more disruptive your product or service is to the existing market, the less your vision matters. You must continue to learn from your customer segments and adapt. Your initial vision may be completely wrong and that's okay. Learn from how customers use your product and be solution agnostic. Fix the problem, not your ego.

[Ryan Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

"lean" as a concept is not new but it's great to read about it in context of a startup. i would not recommend this book to many people - the subject is extremely narrow. also the authors assume that your problem is selling and scaling your great idea, so you need to have a solid idea in order to get the most of this. when you try to make everything concrete (and there are numerous case studies to help you here) you fail when you apply it to your own ambitions because you lack that starting point.

also the title includes the word 'visionary' and they spend 250 pages debunking the concept of a visionary. that's all.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing! I was fortunate to get an early copy of this and there are so many actionable items in here how to intelligently test business ideas with proven case studies to back everything up. While the lean movement has really been taking off in technology, businesses of all kinds have been practicing lean methodologies for years, and this book really sheds light on that. As I mentioned above though, the actionable items make this book! I have highlighted and marked up the entire thing, and have already started putting my ideas into action.

[Dave Applegate · Rating 5 out of 5]

LE explains the different stages a startup goes through in a less regimented but more applicable way than The Four Steps To Epiphany. The book is littered with real life examples of how lean principles are applied to existing startups and actionable next steps. Unlike some other lean startup books out there, LE touches on analytics the right amount and gets users focused on the metrics that really drive the business. Overall, LE is one of the best "advanced" lean startup books out there.

[Jyll Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this on my list for 2 years. It didn't take that long to read, rather I've read it many times over! The examples given are very practical and very applicable to what I'm doing today. I highly recommend this, not only for entrepreneurs but also for anyone who desires to improve their business processes.

[Joseph Santiago · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a mix of style that comulated into an interesting project. I enjoy learning about fast startups and venture capitalists through this book. My six sigma background was needed at points to get through some of the topics. I felt the work stretched my understanding of business concepts and the the concept of lean startups was right on target.

Mr. Joe