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seattlelite

I really liked this book. There's not a lot of fluff (which makes sense since it's a book on being lean), and it gives good examples and steps to help you apply the teachings. What it reminds me of is the Agile methodology because the main concept was about moving in smaller iterations, getting quicker feedback, and adjusting accordingly. In terms of business and start-ups, the underlying theme to me was that you should try not to assume that you're correct - instead create small tests where you roll out an idea in small increments and test them before advancing. In some respect, it sounds like so much common sense, but how often do we fail to do this. Old school business involves creating grandiose business plans that are complete and researched/analyzed using a ton of time. However, encapsulated within that is a lot of assumptions. How do you know such and such will happen? How do you know that customer feedback won't take you in a completely different direction? How can you possibly plan for that alternate direction if you haven't received enough feedback yet? It's difficult predict what people will value, and how much they will value it until they actually have to pay for it (or at least use it). So how do you get to the point where you know exactly how much a customer will value your product/service with the least amount of waste? Are you being flexible enough to allow a 180 degree turn if you find that the customer will value something else than you originally planned for (and that you have the expertise to do)? One important point Maurya makes early on is that money is not the only form of waste. Just as important are things like your time and energy. Why spend time and energy on things that won't add value? The book gives you steps on how to incrementally roll out your idea and constantly test it as you go, down to the level of who you should be getting feedback from, how much time to spend interviewing them, and what questions to ask them.

seattlelite

I really liked this book. There's not a lot of fluff (which makes sense since it's a book on being lean), and it gives good examples and steps to help you apply the teachings. What it reminds me of is the Agile methodology because the main concept was about moving in smaller iterations, getting quicker feedback, and adjusting accordingly. In terms of business and start-ups, the underlying theme to me was that you should try not to assume that you're correct - instead create small tests where you roll out an idea in small increments and test them before advancing. In some respect, it sounds like so much common sense, but how often do we fail to do this. Old school business involves creating grandiose business plans that are complete and researched/analyzed using a ton of time. However, encapsulated within that is a lot of assumptions. How do you know such and such will happen? How do you know that customer feedback won't take you in a completely different direction? How can you possibly plan for that alternate direction if you haven't received enough feedback yet? It's difficult predict what people will value, and how much they will value it until they actually have to pay for it (or at least use it). So how do you get to the point where you know exactly how much a customer will value your product/service with the least amount of waste? Are you being flexible enough to allow a 180 degree turn if you find that the customer will value something else than you originally planned for (and that you have the expertise to do)? One important point Maurya makes early on is that money is not the only form of waste. Just as important are things like your time and energy. Why spend time and energy on things that won't add value? The book gives you steps on how to incrementally roll out your idea and constantly test it as you go, down to the level of who you should be getting feedback from, how much time to spend interviewing them, and what questions to ask them.

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2016

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2016

eackbarali

I have read my fair share of books on starting a business. As an engineer, the "building the product" part is the easy part. What has always challenged me is the entire process. Eric Ries was correct in saying that many books and magazine articles paint a wonderful picture of overnight success. And in my own business challenges, I wonder why I am not having this overnight success that I read about all of the time. Finally I have the answer. The overnight success is a myth. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries changes the perceived paradigm of business. 9 out of 10 startups fail. I personally have been in startups that failed and put it down to a learning experience but still could not pin point exactly what was the cause of the failure. Why didn't people purchase the products/services that I was creating. Am also a fan of Seth Godin and he professes that we build the Wow! into the product as a strategy. But Ash Muraya gets real and for the first time I truly understand why I have failed in the past with the startups that I had been involved in. It was the process. We never got out of the building. We always built software in a vaccuum smugly thinking it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have used the latter strategy and I can say from sheer experience it does not work. It all makes sense now. Seems a little obvious now. This book in itself is lean. It does NOT make the same point over and over again using example after example. Every part of the book is useful. In fact it may be more of a user manual on business than a book. It shows you realistic step by step methods of reducing the time that could be potentially wasted in turning an idea into a product/service. I have already started to use the strategies and it is making a huge difference in my work. I have been through a process of creating an MVP and testing it. The process has already saved me tons of time and to be honest, much heartache. Every time I think of a new product or service I always go back to Running Lean to ensure that I do not repeat past mistakes and to use it's methods once again. Thank you Ash Muraya. It's one of the best books in this genre I have ever read.

eackbarali

I have read my fair share of books on starting a business. As an engineer, the "building the product" part is the easy part. What has always challenged me is the entire process. Eric Ries was correct in saying that many books and magazine articles paint a wonderful picture of overnight success. And in my own business challenges, I wonder why I am not having this overnight success that I read about all of the time. Finally I have the answer. The overnight success is a myth. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries changes the perceived paradigm of business. 9 out of 10 startups fail. I personally have been in startups that failed and put it down to a learning experience but still could not pin point exactly what was the cause of the failure. Why didn't people purchase the products/services that I was creating. Am also a fan of Seth Godin and he professes that we build the Wow! into the product as a strategy. But Ash Muraya gets real and for the first time I truly understand why I have failed in the past with the startups that I had been involved in. It was the process. We never got out of the building. We always built software in a vaccuum smugly thinking it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I have used the latter strategy and I can say from sheer experience it does not work. It all makes sense now. Seems a little obvious now. This book in itself is lean. It does NOT make the same point over and over again using example after example. Every part of the book is useful. In fact it may be more of a user manual on business than a book. It shows you realistic step by step methods of reducing the time that could be potentially wasted in turning an idea into a product/service. I have already started to use the strategies and it is making a huge difference in my work. I have been through a process of creating an MVP and testing it. The process has already saved me tons of time and to be honest, much heartache. Every time I think of a new product or service I always go back to Running Lean to ensure that I do not repeat past mistakes and to use it's methods once again. Thank you Ash Muraya. It's one of the best books in this genre I have ever read.

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2012

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2012

TC3

Where "Lean Startup" (Eric Ries) is the what and why, "Running Lean" is the how. It doesn't just talk, it shows and teaches, provides explanations, and even simple clear tools.I wish I had this book 20 years ago. I use it for projects on my job, and to build a new entrepreneurial company. I am starting a new business from scratch while working a full-time job (on call 24/7), so I don't have a lot of "extra" time. After reading and starting to apply "Lean Startup" to my planning, I checked on some of the resources he offered that prominently displayed "Running Lean". You MUST get this book, and apply it along with the vast resources it offers in the book and online! The Lean Canvas is a huge productivity booster. Instead of wasting time on boring, laborious marketing plans, in 20 minutes you can have a clear structure that you can use for each piece of your whole process. Then use it to focus your team on all the aspects of "what to build, who to build it for, why build it, how to fund it, and where to expect revenues to come from". You decide --- laser focus and optimizing your resources to achieve your BHAG, or wasting time and resources on the wrong things. Get this book, apply it and it's resources, and succeed! (This is for your company/product. For YOU to get even better ,check out "The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster" by Darren Hardy. These two resources will amp up your personal productivity and focus your company's efforts IMMENSELY! I know. I am doing it!)

Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2015

Robertm

When I tore through Running Lean I kept thinking (warning: 40 something TV reference inbound) of the TV show Name That Tune. Yes, the book has plenty of the pre-requisites for something you tear through - well written in a direct and approachable voice, moves along at a good clip, plenty of pointed observations and examples to bring them to life, etc. But what I found most powerful was that in his delivery of the book, Ash is eating his own Lean dog food not just on content but on how he delivers that content. The result? A how-to that definitely punches above its weight. First, he shares the Lean-inspired principles at work in his business ventures, using the book as sort of an open bridge hand for us to watch as he plays. Table stakes for this kind of a tome yes, but done well. As important though, he's been able to convey these interesting Lean principles in a simpler, more graspable, practical and flexible way than I've encountered elsewhere. With the result being a really short walk between the ideas in his book and real word applications to the new venture I've been working on. And that's when you know you have a good resource for helping you actually do something differently...you're engaged by the thinking on the first run through, and returning often to try out bits and pieces on the real world questions you're wrestling around with... rather than just liking the ideas but feeling overwhelmed by the effort or rigidity of applying them to your situation. Definitely plenty of virtual thumb grease on this one from heavy use and more to come. And definitely helping me call the tune on plenty of decisions in the fewest notes possible.

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2012

Amarynn

Having an ambitious dream is great... but then where do you start? What do you focus on? Who do you listen do? I have a big dream. One of those things that you think, "I have to accomplish this before I die, no matter what it takes." And I've been putting in all my free time to try to make it happen. I knew I would need to work my way there and iterate, and to get feedback as I went. But even though I was trying to learn on the way, I just wasn't learning the right things. I'd get feedback that conflicted, and it felt like I was always being pulled in 20 different directions. I was stuck in a cycle of continuously trying to make everyone happy. I love this book because it gave me permission to ignore people. To stop trying to make everyone happy, and to figure out how to make the -right- people happy. Ash's advice: "Don't lower friction, raise it." It's counter intuitive, yet it's the wisdom that has made all the difference for me, and now I'm watching everything change. I started to work closely with just a handful of the right people. I'm focusing on their success and ignoring everyone else. Then others started to notice, and wonder what was different. And now day by day I get requests from other people, interested in what I'm doing. It's starting to sell itself. And I couldn't be more excited. Its the beginning of seeing my dream come to life. I'm so thankful for the practical wisdom in this book. It gave me the structure I needed to find that early traction - even with a bold and ambitious dream. To any reader out there who has a vision, Ash's book is a roadmap to help you make that vision a reality. Thank you, Ash, you're awesome!!!

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2013

Yuriy Bilodray

I am giving this book 5 stars because the author believes deeply in what he is depicting, meticulously goes into the details outlining goals and actions clearly. It seems that not many books of this genre have such a strong practical focus. That's a good point that anecdotes come even before the data (the "Do more faster" by Brad Feld and David Cohen). But all know that often books about startups and for startups bear solely inspirational role, impart a new collective wisdom (of course, also required). This one is another kind, aimed at giving a process of departing from zero, then bootstrapping, and guiding through to the point/quality when you already exist and in a strong position to grow further efficiently, with concrete tools, techniques, and options. The author compiled the famous "Lean Startup" method by Eric Ries into an easily consumable form allowing skimming, combined it with an altered not less famous "Business Model Generation"'s canvas tactics, mixing in all well known things in an organic way. At that, this is not just a book [product]. It is an already big and growing infrastructure, - workshops, community [meaning, service] created following the approach. It is a case study in itself, an opportunity to learn for the readers, and for the author. In the book I found places where I went in cycles and some parts of the concepts seemed to me not fitting seamlessly. People from industries other than S/W may experience difficulties deciding whether the approach is suitable for their case. The same about complex S/W products. However, after having read one would agree this all makes sense to a significant extent, being a fresh POW. And the last note: it's wise not to do a mistake of following the recipes to the letter, - a process combined with curiosity, individual spirit and variety is what gives a matchless taste to what we produce. Times change, world change and approaches do (by us).

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2014

S. Tzanev

Ash Maurya is a driving force in the Lean Startup movement. I'm using his Lean Canvas extensively and I follow closely his fantastic blog posts. Unlike the other big names in the field, like Steve Blank, Eric Ries, and Alexander Osterwalder, Ash Maurya's focus is on the practical (how-to) application of the Lean Startup concepts. The Four Steps to the Epiphany, The Lean Startup, and Business Model Generation are fantastic must-read books, but if you want a great tutorial on how to start applying the Lean Startup principles in practice, Running Lean is the book you need. It can even be very easily your introduction to the Lean Startup if you don't have time or knack for getting deeper into the theory. The best Lean Startup book for practitioners. I also recommend following Ash Maurya's fantastic blog posts as, among other things, they provide updates to some of the practices described in Running Lean. Remember that the this is an evolving framework, and Ash Maurya does a great job sharing (through his blog posts) all the latest learning he acquires from real-world projects. And if you are looking for progress/success metrics that match the Lean framework, I'd highly recommend reading "Lean Analytics" by Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz. "Running Lean" and "Lean Analytics" are the two books that every product manager and every startup founder need to master the practice of Lean Startup.

Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2020

InformedConsumer1

In today's fast-paced world, few people have time to read . . . especially, a 100-page business plan that makes a lot of claims that are unproven. Forty years ago, I created demos using a stack of Vu-graphs (that I created using Harvard Graphics) and an overhead projector to show simulations of what my software designs would. I now use PowerPoint and its hypertext capabilities along with online conferencing, to avoid airplanes and what had been cramming 40 pounds of equipment and a portable hand truck into an overhead compartment along with a heavy briefcase. Chapter 8 in the book contains 25 pages of sage advice about successful demos that make it easier to test markets before creating actual software. Other parts of the book cover the Lean Canvas which provide highlight of a project that will develop it. Simply put, my advise is to create a demo along with a Lean Canvas and refine them with open-ended interviews of prospective users. The book will help convince naysayers who think they can skip the demo and serve as a checklist for moving a development project forward to attain a successful product once it reaches the market.

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2020

Cristian Miranda Lavarello

This book is an excellent compass to begin in the entrepreneurship arena without dying in the process. Upon completion of the first 3 chapters, you can understand if your "AWESOME IDEA" can actually become real without to much investment. I proudly recommend this book to anyone who is "starting" something and requires to get things done the proper way. The Chapters are: 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 Clearly, you will receive more insights in a few pages, than 3 month working on something nobody wants. Thanks ASH for all the insights, specially the Customer Factory Blueprint Course for my company Cliveeo®, Finbooq® SaaS and now 3alCubo™ Workshop.

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2014

Juan M. Isern

This books seems to me like the logical sequel to the seminal book by Eric Ries. What I liked most is that it goes right to the nitty-gritty of finding a business model that works. To be more exact, you can even find scripts to interview customers or write emails to them. When I co-founded a startup I was full of unanswered questions: how good are we doing? what stage are we at? how should we price our product? what's the next step? is this business plan of any use? should I raise VC money? Running lean gets answers to most of those questions, because it: - Encourages you to talk to customers - States that running a startup is a matter of managing risks, and risks also determine your priorities - Defines a set of stages that startups must go through (problem/solution, product/market, scale) - Defines an alternative way to document business models ("lean canvas", as opposed to business plans) with the goal of making it dynamic, understandable, and accesible - Encourages you to stay focused and push less features - Gives miscellaneous advice I'd say that the value of this book is 1000x its price plus the time needed to read it.

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2013

Anne Gunn

The Agile/Lean startup movement has now been 'discovered' by the mainstream press. Check out the special section in this week's Economist*. So prepare for more hype and ever more books on Lean startups. But having read many of the existing ones, I highly recommend this book of Ash's for anyone working through those very early days when you have to figure out if your 'great idea' has any chance of blooming into the viable business model that is the true product of a startup. Ash has a workable, light-enough framework for organizing your thoughts into a one page plan, rigorously testing your riskiest assumptions, and, often, getting to No soon enough that you can still afford to iterate on to a variation or just move on to your next big idea. Readable, actionable, down-to-earth, worth the money. ag * I had a hyperlink in the original review text but, apparently, those aren't allowed. To see the special section, you can browse your way on over to Economist dot com and put 'tech startups' into their internal search field. Look for a link with the work Cambrian in it.

Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2014

Ryan

If you read one book on entrepreneurship, let this be it. It summarizes a lot of the 'best' ideas in entrepreneurship (Steve Blank, Eric Ries, others) and gives you a very practical guide to getting started. At one point in the past, it would have been possible to 'push' a product onto users. Now, unless you are a company like Apple it is almost impossible. There are thousands of other start-ups that will do what you do AND listen to users. The idea of systematically de-risking your business idea is a powerful way to get up and running with the smallest amount of money possible. If you have a business idea but you're not sure whether it's viable, Ash will give you a step by step plan for bringing it from the canvas to making money. As another positive, the author seems to genuinely be interested in engaging with people who read the book. If this book doesn't answer a question you have, you could probably ask him. That's pretty good value for a book.

Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2013

Raymond Harvey

I am involved in a start-up that is bringing a new technology to market...a business model that Ash rightly calls "riddled with technical risk". I had heard of the Lean Startup concept and found Ash's book to be the answer to a great many of my problems. The Lean Canvas method is simple, elegant, very pertinent and quickly identifies the risks your business will need to overcome in order to survive. It forces you to re-prioritise and strive for a "Product/Market Fit" that delivers a product relevant and desirable to your potential customers - one that they are willing to pay for before your business runs out of resources. This year, there will be 400,000,000 business startups around the globe...and 90% of them will fail in the first five years because they did a Business Plan instead of a Lean Canvas. The traditional business plan suffers from the need to obsess about detail you usually don't have data for, without effectively identifying the vital factors that a business must succeed at to survive. Don't become a business statistic, start Running Lean and become a survivor and a success.

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2013

Amazon Customer

A serial entrepreneur for decades, with successes and failures, I've read a large number of business books and periodicals. I usually learn something that I can use but the books are mostly inspirational - for a few days - and then I forget them. This is the best, most useful, brilliant, original business book I've ever read. I'm using Mr. Maurya's specific methodology on two projects now. From the first sketch - the Lean Model Canvas - I got a confidence I'd never had with any business plan: I know that it represents a complete and clear vision of what I have in mind. So it's pretty easy to see notions that have failed me in the past. The next, longer steps are designed to test efficiently any possibly weak areas. "The most valuable resource is the entrepreneur's time." Through his videos, I've gotten a good feel for what kinds and priorities of experiments are worthwhile. More depth on this topic would be very welcome. Bravo, Mr. Maurya, and thank you.

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2014

Bianca v.

This book was a revelation to me. I started a creative agency in 2015 as a writer who was well aware that I was starting with little to no business sense. I love to learn and tackle new challenges, so I figured I'd be able to get the hang of things if I just learned as much as I could from as many people as I could. Big mistake. The longer I ran my business, the more "help" I got, the more I read, the *more* stressful business became. It got to the point that I had to take a long sabbatical and reconsider my options. We were making money and doing good work, but the way we were doing things simply wasn't sustainable. And what's worse, I saw my clients making all the same mistakes and struggling year after year with the same unanswered questions I was. Most of what I've learned about business in the last 7 years has felt like well-meaning but irritating noise. There's something about the way Mr Maurya sees and communicates that cuts through all of it. This book has restored my excitement about entrepreneurship. It reconnected me to that deep understanding that business is unpredictable and risky by nature -- and if you know how to handle it, it can actually be a fun and not life-sucking ride.

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2022