Afterpage

The Lean Startup

Eric Ries

For founders, product teams, and anyone launching something new under uncertainty, inside a startup or a big company. Less useful if you're running an established, predictable business.

A week with this book

A short summary today, then one small action a day for six days. Free for your first book.

The Lean Startup Eric Ries

Free for your first book. No card. One click to stop.

Day 1

The ideas the week uses

Eric Ries argues that startups fail less from bad execution than from building something nobody wants. His method treats a new product as a series of experiments, designed to learn as quickly and cheaply as possible.

  1. Build, measure, learn. The basic loop is to turn ideas into a product, measure how customers respond, and learn whether to keep going or change course. The goal is to get through the loop as fast as possible.
  2. Leap-of-faith assumptions. Every plan rests on a few assumptions that must be true for it to work. Ries highlights two: the value hypothesis, whether people want it, and the growth hypothesis, how it will spread.
  3. The minimum viable product. An MVP is the smallest version that lets you start learning from real customers. It's often embarrassingly simple, and that's fine.
  4. Actionable metrics, not vanity metrics. Total sign-ups and page views can rise while the business is failing. Ries recommends metrics that show cause and effect, such as cohort analysis and split tests.
  5. Pivot or persevere. At regular intervals, decide whether the evidence supports the strategy. A pivot changes one fundamental part of the plan while keeping what you've learned.

Where it overreachesThe “minimum” in MVP is often misread as permission to ship something broken. The book is also light on what to do in markets where fast experiments are costly, such as hardware or regulated fields.

Days 2 to 7

How to apply The Lean Startup

10 to 20 minutes each, with a two-minute version for a bad day.

Printable week card (one page)

  1. 2List your leap-of-faith assumptionsWrite down the assumptions that must be true for your product or project to succeed, and mark the riskiest.
  2. 3Design the smallest testDescribe the cheapest experiment that could test your riskiest assumption within a week.
  3. 4Build the MVPSpend your session building the test you designed yesterday, and get it in front of at least one real person.
  4. 5Pick one actionable metricChoose one metric that would show whether your test is working, and drop one vanity metric you've been watching.
  5. 6Ask five whysTake one recent problem or failure in your project and ask “why?” five times to find the root cause.
  6. 7Hold a pivot-or-persevere meetingReview what your experiment taught you and decide, in writing, whether to persevere, pivot, or run a new test.

Sample

Day 3, in full

This is what lands in your inbox that morning.

AfterpageDay 3 of 7 · Action

Design the smallest test

Today’s action · 10 to 20 minutes

Describe the cheapest experiment that could test your riskiest assumption within a week.

How

Options include a landing page with a sign-up button, a manual version of the service done by hand, a short demo video, or a pre-sale. Write what you'll do, what result would count as success, and what would count as failure, before you start.

Why this one

This is Ries's minimum viable product: the least effort needed to start the build-measure-learn loop. Deciding success criteria in advance prevents moving the goalposts.

If today is a bad day

Write one sentence: “If at least __ of __ people do __, the assumption holds.”

In short

Questions about this book

Who is The Lean Startup by Eric Ries for?

For founders, product teams, and anyone launching something new under uncertainty, inside a startup or a big company. Less useful if you're running an established, predictable business.

What are the main ideas in The Lean Startup?

Eric Ries argues that startups fail less from bad execution than from building something nobody wants. His method treats a new product as a series of experiments, designed to learn as quickly and cheaply as possible. Build, measure, learn; Leap-of-faith assumptions; The minimum viable product; Actionable metrics, not vanity metrics; Pivot or persevere.

What do you do in the Afterpage week for The Lean Startup?

Day 1 is a short summary. Then one action a day, each 10 to 20 minutes: List your leap-of-faith assumptions; Design the smallest test; Build the MVP; Pick one actionable metric; Ask five whys; Hold a pivot-or-persevere meeting. Day 7 also has a recap.

Where does The Lean Startup overreach?

The “minimum” in MVP is often misread as permission to ship something broken. The book is also light on what to do in markets where fast experiments are costly, such as hardware or regulated fields.

What is the first action in the The Lean Startup week?

List your leap-of-faith assumptions. Write down the assumptions that must be true for your product or project to succeed, and mark the riskiest. If you only have two minutes: Write the one assumption that, if wrong, would end the project.

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