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We're building more products today than ever before, but most of them fail — not because we can't complete what we want to build but because we waste time, money, and effort building the wrong product. What we need is a systematic process for quickly vetting product ideas and raising our odds of success. That's the promise of Running Lean.

In this inspiring book, Ash Maurya takes you through an exacting strategy for achieving a product/market fit for your fledgling venture. You'll learn ideas and concepts from several innovative methodologies, including the Lean Startup, business model design, design thinking, and Jobs-to-be-Done. This new edition introduces the continuous innovation framework and follows one entrepreneur's journey to uncover, design, and build a product that matters.

  • Know when to "pivot" by changing your plan's course
  • Maximize your efforts for speed, learning, and focus
  • Learn the ideal time to raise your "big round" of funding
  • Find a problem worth solving, then define a solution
  • Engage your customers throughout the development cycle
  • Continually test your product with smaller, faster iterations
  • Build a feature, measure customer response, and verify or refute the idea

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
    1. A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs
    2. A Build-First or Investor-First Approach is Backwards
    3. 1 year ago…
    4. Off to the races…
    5. 6 months later…
    6. Catch-22
    7. A Traction-first Approach is the New Way Forward
    8. What Determines Success Isn’t Differing Skill Sets But Differing Mindsets
    9. The stakes are much higher this time
    10. Speed of learning is the new unfair advantage.
    11. Succeeding in the new world requires new mindsets
    12. You Can’t Afford to Wait For An Idea Whose Time Has Come
    13. Steve learns about Minimum Viable Products
    14. Don’t Start With an MVP
    15. There is a Systematic Approach to Entrepreneurship
    16. About Me
    17. How This Book is Organized?
    18. PART 1: MODEL
    19. Part 2: PRIORITIZE
    20. Part 3: TEST
    21. Is This Book For You?
    22. Practice Trumps Theory
  2. I. Model
  3. 1. Deconstruct Your Idea into a Business Model
    1. Sketching Your First Lean Canvas
    2. Sketch a canvas in one sitting.
    3. Avoid group think.
    4. Know that it’s okay to leave boxes blank
    5. Follow the 1-page rule
    6. Think in the present
    7. Remember there is no right order for sketching a Lean Canvas
    8. Customer Segments
    9. Distinguish between customers and users.
    10. Model multiple perspectives
    11. Home in on early adopters
    12. Problem
    13. List the top one to three problems.
    14. List existing alternatives.
    15. Steve Tackles the Customer Segment/ Problem Quadrant
    16. Unique Value Proposition
    17. Connect to your customer’s #1 problem.
    18. Target early adopters.
    19. Focus on outcomes.
    20. Keep it short.
    21. Answer: what, who, and why.
    22. Create a high-concept pitch.
    23. Steve crafts his UVP
    24. Solution
    25. Steve defines a Solution
    26. Channels
    27. Steve outlines some possible paths to customers
    28. Revenue Streams and Cost Structure
    29. Revenue Streams
    30. Cost structure
    31. Steve thinks through his cost structure and revenue streams
    32. Key Metrics
    33. Happy customers get you paid.
    34. Steve aligns on his key metrics
    35. Unfair Advantage
    36. What do you do if you don’t have an unfair advantage on day one?
    37. Steve ponders his unfair advantage story
    38. Refine Your Lean Canvas
    39. So how do you avoid the Goldilocks problem?
    40. How do you know when to split your Lean Canvas?
    41. Steve Splits His Big Idea Canvas into Specific Variants
    42. Now It’s Your Turn
  4. 2. Stress Test Your Business Model
    1. Stress Testing Desirability
    2. The problem with problems
    3. The Innovator’s Gift
    4. Steve Realizes He Has a Hammer Problem
    5. Run the Innovator’s Gift Test on Your Idea
    6. Stress Testing Viability
    7. Up for some Excel magic?
    8. What is Traction?
    9. Don’t create a financial forecast. Start with a Fermi Estimate instead.
    10. 1. Set a Minimum Success Criteria Constraint
    11. 2. Test Your Business Model Against Your Minimum Success Criteria Constraint
    12. 3. Adjust Your Business Model
    13. Isn’t this just funny math?
    14. Run the Back-of-the-envelope Test on Your Idea
    15. Stress Testing Feasibility
  5. 3. Pitch Your Business Model
    1. The Different Worldviews of an Idea
    2. The Story We Tell Ourselves
    3. The Investor Story
    4. The Customer Story
    5. The Advisor Story
    6. The Competitor Story
    7. Start With An Elevator Pitch
    8. An elevator pitch is NOT about your solution
    9. An elevator pitch is the beginning of a good story
    10. It’s time to craft your elevator pitch
    11. Outline Your Origin Story
    12. Craft a 5-minute Business Model Story Pitch
    13. Get Feedback on Your Business Model Story Pitch
    14. Steve Reviews His Business Model Story Pitch With Mary
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