The Lean Startup

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries challenges the biggest myth in entrepreneurship: that success comes from having a brilliant idea, perfect timing, strong determination, and a great product. Ries argues that many people have amazing ideas, but ideas alone hold very little value. What truly separates successful startups from failures is the ability to test assumptions, learn quickly, and execute effectively. In a world filled with uncertainty, the real goal of a startup is not to build a product — it is to learn what the right product should be.

Ries introduces the powerful concept of the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop, a cycle designed to help founders discover what customers actually want as fast as possible. Traditional long-term planning doesn't work when nothing is stable, and “just doing it” without planning turns progress into chaos. Instead, startups must form simple hypotheses, build the smallest possible version of the idea, measure how customers interact with it, and learn whether to continue, adjust, or abandon the approach. This process is repeated again and again until clarity emerges.

To support this, Ries explains that everything in a startup is an experiment. Instead of asking customers what they want — because they often don’t know — startups should observe real behavior. Sometimes an experiment doesn’t require building anything; a simple landing page can test demand before investing effort. When a product is needed, founders create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) — not a polished version, but the most basic form of the idea used to test one core assumption. If it feels embarrassingly simple, you're doing it right.

The MVP can take many forms. Dropbox used a video MVP, demonstrating what the product would do before building it, which attracted tens of thousands of sign-ups overnight. Other startups use concierge MVPs, manually serving a few customers to understand their needs deeply before automating anything. Some use Wizard of Oz MVPs, where the front-end appears fully functional, but humans secretly power everything behind the scenes. What matters is not the beauty of the product but the learning it generates.

Once a startup proves its product creates real value, it must choose a clear engine of growth. Ries describes three: the sticky engine, where success depends on retaining customers and reducing churn; the viral engine, where growth happens through people sharing the product with others; and the paid engine, where growth depends on advertising efficiency and the lifetime value of each customer. A startup must focus on one primary engine and refine it through repeated testing.

Eventually, all founders face the crucial decision: pivot or persevere. Perseverance is important, but clinging stubbornly to a failing strategy can destroy a business. A pivot is not a failure; it is an informed, strategic shift based on what experiments have revealed. Startups typically pivot toward different customers, revenue models, or engines of growth. Nearly every successful company experiences a major pivot before finding the right path.

Ultimately, The Lean Startup presents a new way of thinking about entrepreneurship. A startup is not a smaller version of a big company — it is a learning machine. Its purpose is to test ideas, eliminate waste, and uncover the right path through continuous experimentation. Success comes not from guessing correctly but from learning quickly. By embracing MVPs, validated learning, fast iterations, and strategic pivots, entrepreneurs dramatically increase their chances of building products people truly want.