The Lean Startup

1. “The point is not to find the average customer but to find early adopters: the customers who feel the need for the product most acutely. Those customers tend to be more forgiving of mistakes and are especially eager to give feedback.”

2. “After more than ten years as an entrepreneur, I came to reject that line of thinking. I have learned from both my own successes and failures and those of many others that it’s the boring stuff that matters the most. Startup success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.”

3. “This is one of the most important discoveries of the lean manufacturing movement: you cannot trade quality for time. If you are causing (or missing) quality problems now, the resulting defects will slow you down later.”

4. “Third, many entrepreneurs are afraid. Acknowledging failure can lead to dangerously low morale. Most entrepreneurs’ biggest fear is not that their vision will prove to be wrong. More terrifying is the thought that the vision might be deemed wrong without having been given a real chance to prove itself.”

5. “Only 5 percent of entrepreneurship is the big idea, the business model, the whiteboard strategizing, and the splitting up of the spoils. The other 95 percent is the gritty work that is measured by innovation accounting: product prioritization decisions, deciding which customers to target or listen to, and having the courage to subject a grand vision to constant testing and feedback.”

6. “If a competitor can outexecute a startup once the idea is known, the startup is doomed anyway. The reason to build a new team to pursue an idea is that you believe you can accelerate through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop faster than anyone else can.”

1. Build-Measure-Learn Faster Than Anyone Else

The fundamental activity of a startup is turning ideas into products, measuring customer response, and learning whether to pivot or persevere. The goal isn't to build the perfect product, but to learn what customers actually want as quickly and cheaply as possible. Speed of learning is your competitive advantage.

2. Start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Build the smallest possible version of your product that allows you to test core assumptions with real customers. An MVP isn't a prototype—it's a real product that people will pay for, even if it's incomplete. The goal is validated learning, not perfection.

3. Validated Learning Beats Vanity Metrics

Focus on actionable metrics that demonstrate real progress toward building a sustainable business. Revenue, retention, and customer acquisition cost matter more than downloads, page views, or registered users. Vanity metrics make you feel good but don't guide decisions.

4. Pivot Based on Data, Not Emotions

A pivot is a structured course correction to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product. Don't pivot just because things are hard, and don't persevere just because you're attached to your idea. Use innovation accounting to make evidence-based decisions about when to change direction.

5. Eliminate Waste in Everything You Do

Any activity that doesn't contribute to learning about customers is waste. This includes building features customers don't want, perfecting things before testing them, and planning too far ahead without validation. Focus ruthlessly on activities that generate validated learning about your market.