The Lean Entrepreneur ─ How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets

Advice for entrepreneurs looking to build a business people actually want to invest in
Designed to reduce waste by testing the market for a product early and often, the concept of the lean startup has been embraced around the world, and successful entrepreneurs and authors Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits join the conversation with their own personal experiences. The Lean Entrepreneur is designed to make lean startup and customer development principles immediately actionable no matter what the industry, size, or stage.
This must-read book presents a lexicon of concepts and a universally applicable road map to success, as well as illustrative examples of innovative approaches to industry-specific disruption ranging from technology startups to consumer packaged goods to music to investment and finance. Providing a step-by-step approach to best practices, and giving readers a business model analysis guide, the book is rich in cases studies, illustrative graphics, worksheets, and exercises for a truly immersive guide to starting or improving a company. Invaluable reading for all readers in all businesses, the book teaches entrepreneurs how to approach risk head-on and test market ideas immediately, foster stronger customer relations, test different business model risks, and create a customer funnel based on buyers' process in order to eliminate unnecessary time and effort.
A lean entrepreneur has already bought into lean startup, customer development, design thinking, and other iterative, customer-centric methods of product development. The lean entrepreneur wants to know how to apply these to their business. In other words: how to get started tomorrow. This book shows the way.

* Expands on the core ideas of the "Lean Startup" concept, adding the use of powerful, low-cost analytics to the mix
* Explains how earlier, more frequent market research can save a business time and money
* Incorporates cases studies, graphics, worksheets, and exercises to help readers better understand the key concepts expounded in the text

Packed with information that can help business at all levels of development—from initial ideas to established companies looking to innovate—The Lean Entrepreneur is the field guide for creating innovative businesses.

Brant Cooper helps organizations big and small move the needle. His startup career includes Tumbleweed, Timestamp, WildPackets, inCode, and many others. He has experienced IPO, acquisition, rapid growth, and miserable failure. Brant previously authored The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, the first purpose-written book to discuss lean startup and customer development concepts, earning a distribution of over 50,000 copies. Brant has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs across the globe and is a sought-after speaker, having presented at leading companies such as Qualcomm, Intuit, Capital One, and Hewlett-Packard. Brant is reachable @brantcooper. He lives with (and continuously learns from) his two daughters, Riva and Eliza, near Swami's in Encinitas, California.

Patrick Vlaskovits is an entrepreneur, author, and consultant, and more than anything wishes he were a polymath. His writing has been featured on the Harvard Business Review blog, the Wall Street Journal blog, and The Browser. Patrick routinely speaks at technology conferences nationally and internationally, including SXSW, GROW Conference, the Turing Festival, and the Lean Startup Conference. He co-founded two startups, currently advises multiple technology startups, and serves as a mentor for 500 Startups, a seed fund and startup accelerator. As a principal at Moves the Needle, he counts Fortune 100 companies in his client list. The Lean Entrepreneur is his second book. The first, The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, is a required course text for MBA and undergrad at universities such as the University of Chicago Booth School and Berkeley. He has also guest-lectured at Stanford and UCLA. For some unknown reason, Patrick holds a master's in economics from UC Santa Barbara. When he has spare time, he can be found on Orange County beaches with his family. Tweet at him @Pv and read his blog at vlaskovits.com.