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The Lean Startup (Part 1)

Published 2019/09/18

Last updated on 2019/09/26

Ok, I need to be honest here. I wasn’t very excited about this book. I had just finished some fast-paced and fun thrillers by Matthew Reilly and knew that I wanted to tackle a book to start writing about on this blog. I actually picked it because it was the shortest of the handful of nonfiction books in the queue on my phone. Sometime in the future I will get into a discourse around audiobooks, but for now, let me just state that the vast majority of my book-based reading is in the form of audiobooks. As such, I always try and keep a number of interesting books loaded on my phone so I have a good selection when I finish what I am currently listening to.

So there I was earlier today, scrolling through a handful of books and picked the one that would get me through the quickest. It also happened to look the most boring. I am very much a window shopper. I will read a book just because the cover looks really cool. I pick wine for my wife based on the best looking label that I see on the shelf (here’s looking at you Apothic Inferno). Needless to say, this cover didn’t blow me away. Also, I need to call out that I am not done with the book yet. However, I have paused in consuming the book to reflect and to write this post.

I am pausing the reading because I never would have guessed in a million years that I would be sitting here typing away halfway seriously contemplating pivoting this blog to focus on Entrepreneurs instead of Engineers. This is a great book. The ideas are well formed and well laid out. The anecdotes are relevant and help to tie the material together very well. It is very obvious that Mr. Ries has a solid philosophy on his hands and I love the approach for applying lean principles to product development. I really want to try and absorb and review some of the material before going on.

One of the reasons that this book is particularly resonant with me right now is that I am in the midst of a big product delivery at work currently and so many of the insights that I have read so far are poignant lessons as to how we could approch things in different ways that could be much less stressful and potentially more effective. In reading these ideas, it is clear that any Field of Dreams approach is going to be difficult for any organization, let alone one that views itself as a startup. One of the best things about the book so far is that Mr. Ries takes the time to call out huge established companies that have created walled gardens where people have embraced these ideas and created entrepreneurs within the context of a larger, established, and traditional company.

Echoing some of the sentiment in the book – we all know of the concept of the garage startup. The Googles and the Apples of the world. The great part about this book is that a pathway is shown where any company can embrace aspects of this methodology to reap the benefits of a startup culture.

I am very much looking forward to finishing this book. It has already become one of my favorites and given me quite a bit to think about that could change some of my perception in a number of areas. So far, I would definitely consider this a great read for anyone that is towards the top of the leadership structure in any company. I look forward to writing more about how these concepts will impact my philosophy when I read the second half of the book and write the second half of this post.

Until next time, read on!

Published in #readingmaterial

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