23 Lean Startup Insights

A startup is a human institution designed to create under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

True startup productivity is not just making more stuff, but systematically figuring out the right things to build.

The goal of a #leanstartup is to move through the build-measure-learn feedback loop as quickly as possible.

The goal of a #leanstartup is to learn what is valuable to the customer.

Lean thinking defines value as providing benefit to the customer; anything else is waste.

Leaning is the essential unit of progress for startups.

Test assumptions you've made about your business, its customers and how you're serving them.

Our future prosperity depends on the quality of our collective imaginations.

The answer to strategic plans being difficult and disorienting is *not* to rely on chaos.

Our job is to find a synthesis between our vision and what customers will accept, not just to capitulate.

Just trying to make the customer happy does not produce a sustainable business model.

If you don't know what you're testing, all the results in the world will tell you nothing.

Begin with a clear hypothesis that makes predictions about what is supposed to happen.

The goal of every startup experiment is to discover how to build a sustainable business around the vision.

It's not enough to just give it a whirl; you've got to give it a whirl with purpose and direction.

Early adopters are those who crave a solution to the problem you've identified.

Ask yourself: Do consumers recognize that they have the problem you are trying to solve?

Build not only a product that can sell well, but a platform through which to deliver it.

If we do not know who the customer is, we do not know what quality is

The three A's of metrics: actionable, accessible and auditable.

Vanity metrics allow you to form false conclusions and live in your own private reality.

Lethargy and bureaucracy are not the inevitable fate of companies as they achieve maturity.

Be tolerant of all mistakes the first time, not don't make allow the same mistake twice.