The Lean Startup

I really enjoyed this book. Way more than I thought I would. I was expecting it too be a very somewhat dry, jargon filled business book but it wasn’t at all. I chose this book because I wanted to learn more about the lean process and mission accomplished. I learned more from this book than most of the others I’ve read this year. Eric Ries uses a lot of great examples to push his points across which I really liked. He uses examples from his own experience and doesn’t always paint the rosiest picture which is great. He breaks down processes and theories that most startups still use today and shows you how inefficient they are. Some even go against the very thing startups are trying to accomplish. One of the biggest things I’m going to remember is the MVP (Minimal Viable Product). As someone who loves to plan and think things through, this opened my eyes to how that can actually cause more work in certain scenarios. The MVP and constant iterations makes so much sense now. The other piece I loved was the Five Whys. Using the Five Whys to dig deep enough to find the root cause was fascinating. If you don’t go far enough, you may come up with an irrelevant solution or cause a brand new issue. Highly recommend this book for anyone interested in business and startups.