Your guide to the books that make your startup lean

From the Blog

May
29
Posted by Erik Starck at 3:08 pm

This is an amazingly beautiful book. It’s a pure joy reading it. Not only does it look good, it has brains too!

Business Model Generation introduces the Business Model Canvas, a simplified way to build a business plan. Simplified, but not simple. The Business Model Canvas gives you a much better overview of your business than what a business plan document can ever give you, but it contains more or less the same information.

This makes it much more agile to work with, which is one reason that the Business Model Canvas is considered a cornerstone in the lean startup process.

The book also contains an overview of other agile business development tools and processes, but it’s the canvas that makes the book worth buying. And buy it you should. You will use this book, I guarantee it.


Rating: ★★★★★ 

This is not directly a lean startup book but it gives a good framework on how to think when it comes to doing a startup vs making your money in an ordinary job.

The book contains lots of useful models for evaluating ideas and markets. Like this one, a few simple questions to ask yourself before starting your company. Is it worth it, getting in to this market? Will my startup scale?

You should read this book before you start your lean startup. It will help you decide if entrepreneurship is for you and if your idea has what it takes. Yes, even though “ideas are worthless”, the market you’re targeting has certain characteristics and so does the idea (such as: is it easy to copy?). With The Fastlane Millionaire you will get mental models that help you pick the strong ideas from the weak ones.

The writing style is somewhat provocative and direct but it’s an entertaining and good read. I would recommend it as inspiration as well as for the models it gives you.


Rating: ★★★★½