The Lean Startup

Many startups fail. One of the reasons, as explained by Ries, is that traditional management techniques simply don’t work for Startups. With the proposed approach, Startups should be able to tackle uncertainty and therefore reduce their risk of failure. But also in bigger companies, Ries’ approach can be applied to develop products that customers want. The book gives practical advice, and includes a lot of personal experiences from the author’s business life as well as applicable techniques such as the “5 Why Method”. The reason why this is seen as one of the most important innovation books is that it introduces the lean approach, which is crucially different from  older management approaches and could prevent many companies from failure. 

The weakness of this book is that it is strongly focused on a software context without many examples from other sectors. Also the method’s core idea is built around a process of incremental improvement, which neglects the necessity of any radical innovation. As one reader argued, if Henry Ford would have only worked based on this book than we would just have faster horses today instead of cars. Nonetheless, the method is groundbreaking as it helps companies to embrace uncertainty and shows the value of an experimental approach to business. Every business person should know about the Lean Startup approach and consider its elements to operate a successful company.