The Lean Entrepreneur. Vlaskovits Patrick

likely, almost completely unknown.

      The inverse is also true: If one is developing products for which the value proposition, price, marketing, sales channels, and market segments are known or very likely to be known, then iterative, customer-centric, data-driven approaches as espoused by The Lean Entrepreneur may be suboptimal.

      Suffice it to say that when the value proposition is known and successfully delivered by a business to a known customer, the methods of execution used by its owners and employees are good enough, at least for now. Perhaps they could become more efficient or less wasteful, but to instruct successful businesses on how to be more efficient is not our ambition.

      As you read The Lean Entrepreneur, we’ll make the case that innovating in uncertainty requires a highly iterative approach. We’ll also make the case that a disproportionate part of your business model is ultimately determined not by command-and-control diktats from the executive offices of your company or even your own personal desires but implicitly by the market segment you hope to provide value for. The sooner you grok that your customers have significant de facto control over the destiny of your business, the better it is for you, your customers, your employees, your colleagues, your shareholders, and other stakeholders in your business.

      To belabor the point, it is your market segment, not you, that determines how you distribute your product, how much customers are willing to pay, what sort of messaging they respond to, and for what job they are in need of hiring a product. In other words, other than the fact that you can choose whether to serve a particular segment, it is up to the segment to decide whether you should be given a shot.

      Since iterative, customer-centric, data-informed product development approaches to creating value predate this book, is this simply a gussied-up rehash of previous thinking?

      Short answer: No.

      We hear time and time again that the greatest contribution made by Eric Ries and the Lean Startup is the lexicon. It provides a language for anyone practicing entrepreneurship to talk about how to do meaningful innovation. The point has never been about who came up with what, but, rather, how we can learn from past successes to make future endeavors more predictable.

      We feel that we are now witnessing a phase marked by radical disequilibrium and fundamental changes in innovation and entrepreneurship enabled by a juggernaut of technological and cultural trends.

      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.

      WHO IS THE LEAN ENTREPRENEUR?

      We’d like to answer that question like most entrepreneurs who are asked to define their market: Everyone! However, in order to demonstrate that we drink our own Kool-Aid, we have spoken to and worked with many different individuals as we wrote this book. Here are our market segments:

      ● Scalable startup founders – If you are hoping to build “the next big thing.”

      ● Lifestyle business founders – We don’t think the term is derogatory in the least. If you’re trying to build a real business that provides value to customers, we’re talking to you.

      ● Intrapreneurs – If you are trying to change your business, whatever size, to move at the speed of the Internet, read on.

      ● Educators – You recognize that entrepreneurship needs to be taught differently.

      ● Government change agents – If, like entrepreneurs trying to drive change inside big businesses, you are trying to drive change in how governments operate, we’re here to help.

      ● Investors – You could use help finding and providing assistance to the right startups.

      Although we’d like to think this book will benefit everyone to some degree, this book is likely less than optimal for these market segments:

      ● Small-business founders who are starting companies for which there is already a known model – Typically these are the types of businesses found in malls: dry cleaners, retailers, franchises, and so forth.

      ● Lifestyle business owners – If you’ve already built your business and are generally satisfied with what you’ve achieved, congratulations! You probably don’t need us.

      ● Solo practitioners – If you’re trying to generate a personal or family income stream via “projects” or small-scale products or services, we think that’s great! There are probably better books for that.

      Generally speaking, if you’ve read Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup and are looking for more tactical application of the principles espoused there, this is the right book for you. If you haven’t read it and need convincing that a lean startup is the right thing for you and your organization, we will make the case – but you really should read Eric’s book.

      If you’ve read The Four Steps to the Epiphany, our Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development, or Blank’s The Startup Owner’s Manual, you will find new tools and methodologies for applying the principles you already believe in. There is not a lot of duplication here.

      If you are well into the lean startup movement, a heavy reader of Ash Maurya, Cindy Alvarez, Sean Murphy, and others, we firmly believe we have exciting new material you can use to grow your business.

      HOW TO USE THE LEAN ENTREPRENEUR

      With this book, we hope to not only teach you and inspire you, but also to show you some fun along the way.

      To that end, we’ve engaged a talented entrepreneur and artist who goes by the name of Fake Grimlock. Fake Grimlock has created an expressive set of illustrations just for The Lean Entrepreneur. The illustrations tell a story and serve to amplify concepts from the book.

      You’ll find them a bit whimsical at times, but be prepared to think deep thoughts as you take them in.

      We’ve made them available for you for reuse and remix, subject to the Creative Commons license.

      If you want to download the illustrations to use them in your presentations or blog posts or in other interesting ways, please do.2 You can access them at http://LeanEntrepreneur.co/illustrations or e-mail us at [email protected].

      Our writing style aims to get to the heart of the matter quickly. Experts in specific domains will notice, probably much to their irritation, that we intentionally gloss over some of the finer points we discuss. This is not because we don’t think the details matter; they do, but they don’t matter for the context of this book.

      The “New and Improved” Lean Entrepreneur is divided into seven chapters:

      1. Startup Revolution – A brief redux on what’s going on now that makes lean innovation the right methodology to apply to your business, regardless of size or sector.

      2. Lean into Change – We describe what vision, values, and culture have to do with innovation.

      3. All the Fish in the Sea – We help you figure out what customers fish for.

      4. Wading in the Value Stream – We bring you a framework to establish new value to be created for customers.

      5. Core Lean Entrepreneur – We introduce the 3Es of lean innovation – empathy, experiments, and evidence.

      6. The Lean Journey – We describe how you apply the 3Es over the innovation lifecycle.

      7. The Final Word – We end with a call to action.

      Throughout, we include examples of real companies applying lean startup principles and succeeding. We hope you gain learning and inspiration from these companies, many of whom don’t use the term lean to describe themselves.

      Each chapter also includes exercises and templates you can use to help you think through your business model. Although we don’t believe a step-by-step approach to success exists, we think many will find our exercises beneficial.

      Learn

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We’ve licensed the illustrations with http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. We’d love for you to use and share them, just remember to attribute “The Lean Entrepreneur by Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits with illustrations by Fake Grimlock” with a link to http://LeanEntrepreneur.co. Thanks!