Metadata
- Author: Eric Ries
- Full Title: The Lean Startup
- Category:
Highlights
Build-Measure-Learn. The fundamental activity of a startup is to turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and then learn whether to pivot or persevere. All successful startup processes should be geared to accelerate that feedback loop. (Location 201) - Note: I would argue there is a learning step prior to the build step to save time and money
When I worked as a programmer, that meant eight straight hours of programming without interruption. That was a good day. In contrast, if I was interrupted with questions, process, or—heaven forbid—meetings, I felt bad. What did I really accomplish that day? Code and product features were tangible to me; I could see them, understand them, and show them off. Learning, by contrast, is frustratingly intangible. (Location 285) - Note: This is how a feel these days. I need to find a way to track and document our learnings. We also have to get out our four walls more.
I wish I could say that I was the one to realize our mistake and suggest the solution, but in truth, I was the last to admit the problem. In short, our entire strategic analysis of the market was utterly wrong. We figured this out empirically, through experimentation, rather than through focus groups or market research. Customers could not tell us what they wanted; most, after all, had never heard of 3D avatars. Instead, they revealed the truth through their action or inaction as we struggled to make the product better. (Location 581)
Lean thinking defines value as providing benefit to the customer; anything else is waste. (Location 652) - Note: Amen
We adopted the view that our job was to find a synthesis between our vision and what customers would accept; it wasn’t to capitulate to what customers thought they wanted or to tell customers what they ought to want. (Location 685) - Note: I identify with this, but perhaps steer our customers too much.
the right way to think about productivity in a startup: not in terms of how much stuff we are building but in terms of how much validated learning we’re getting for our efforts. (Location 694)
These are some of the questions teams struggle to answer if they have followed the “let’s just ship a product and see what happens” plan. I call this the “just do it” school of entrepreneurship after Nike’s famous slogan.1 Unfortunately, if the plan is to see what happens, a team is guaranteed to succeed—at seeing what happens—but won’t necessarily gain validated learning. This is one of the most important lessons of the scientific method: if you cannot fail, you cannot learn. (Location 762)
Most of the volunteering has been of the low-impact variety, involving manual labor, even when the volunteers were highly trained experts. (Location 804) - Note: How can Marshie and I use our unique skills for good?
The value hypothesis tests whether a product or service really delivers value to customers once they are using it. (Location 829)
For the growth hypothesis, which tests how new customers will discover a product or service, we can do a similar analysis. (Location 835)
Instead, I try to push my team to first answer four questions: 1. Do consumers recognize that they have the problem you are trying to solve? 2. If there was a solution, would they buy it? 3. Would they buy it from us? 4. Can we build a solution for that problem?” (Location 872) - Note: Key line of thinking and communication
He explained, “Until we could figure out how to sell and make the product, it wasn’t worth spending any engineering time on.” (Location 882)
Where customers complained about missing features, this suggested that the team was on the right track. The team now had early evidence that those features were in fact important. (Location 898)
“Success is not delivering a feature; success is learning how to solve the customer’s problem.” (Location 906)