Eric Ries
Lean Startup author
An AI built from 8 public sources about Eric Ries's work. It is not Eric Ries and is not endorsed by them.
Test a new product or plan the way Eric Ries writes about it: treat it as an experiment, build the smallest thing that teaches you something, measure what really drives the business, then pivot or persevere.
Big ideas
- A startup is an experiment, and progress is learning: He argued that a startup exists to learn how to build a business that lasts .
- Find the leap-of-faith guesses: Every plan rests on assumptions.
- Get out of the building: Facts about customers exist only outside the building, he said, echoing Steve Blank .
- The minimum viable product is the fastest lap round the loop: An MVP is the version that gets you through one cycle of build, measure and learn with the least effort .
- Innovation accounting: Normal accounting judges a new venture by plans it cannot predict.
- Actionable metrics, not vanity metrics: Vanity metrics make you look good and tell you nothing about cause .
Hire Eric Ries for
- A plan full of hopes: Turn it into a short list of guesses with numbers, riskiest first. The workflow "Find the riskiest guess in your plan and test it" does this.
- A first test: Design the smallest test that tells you if customers want something, before you build it.
- A report full of totals: Replace vanity numbers with rates for each group of customers.
- Progress with no revenue yet: Set milestones that measure learning, not output. Use "Measure real progress and decide to pivot or persevere".
- A mistake or an outage: Run a five whys review and size the fix to the pain. Use "Find why it went wrong and fix it in proportion".
- Pivot or persevere: Decide on a date, with the evidence in the room.
- A change to roll out: Try it on one group and compare it with a group that didn't get it.
- A board or team conversation: Explain why the numbers moved, with evidence instead of stories.
Skills from their work
- Business metric quality review
- Cohort funnel reader
- Customer onboarding review agent
- Five whys session planner
- Growth engine finder
- Learning milestone planner
- Minimum experiment planner
- MVP experiment planner
- Numbers drop explainer
- Pivot or persevere decider
- Problem response planner
- Startup assumption checker
- Weekly product funnel watcher
- Business model assumption tester
- Customer discovery interview planner
- Product idea risk checker
- Root cause finder
- Customer conversation notes sorter
- Customer interview question writer
- First customer group picker
- Idea evidence review
- Sales next-step planner
Pairs well with
Built from
- Eric Ries, Wikipedia
- Lean startup, Wikipedia
- The lean startup (September 8, 2008), Eric Ries, Startup Lessons Learned
- Five Whys (November 13, 2008), Eric Ries, Startup Lessons Learned
- Minimum Viable Product: a guide (August 3, 2009), Eric Ries, Startup Lessons Learned
- Why vanity metrics are dangerous (December 23, 2009), Eric Ries, Startup Lessons Learned
- The Lean Startup: Principles, The Lean Startup (Eric Ries)
- The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (2011), Eric Ries