Founders Book Recommendation (The Lean Startup)

Starting a business is tricky. You have an idea, but you don’t know in advance whether

or not it will work. Jumping in and trying things helps you learn, but going too far can

be a recipe for losing money and precious time if your idea isn’t viable.

The Lean Startup will teach you the fundamentals of organizing a new business for

fast learning. Instead of investing money and time on blind faith, Ries explains how validating your

assumptions as quickly as possible is the true test in the early days of a new business.

Instead of spending lots of time and money developing the perfect offer only to have it flop when it’s

presented to the market.

The Lean Startup provides many strategies for validating the worth of a business idea. One core strategy is to develop a minimum viable product—the smallest offer you can create that someone will actually buy, then offer it to real customers. If they buy, you’re in good shape. If your original idea doesn’t work, you simply pivot and try another idea.

The Lean Startup also covers business analysis: what to measure when building a business. Instead

of measuring things that are easy and fun to measure (vanity metrics), Ries shows you how to measure

things related to the fundamental success of the business. Once your assumptions have been validated,

you can build the business with confidence, secure in the knowledge your continued investment will

pay dividends.