Eric Ries - The Lean Startup

Instead of making complex plans that are based on a lot of assumptions, you can make constant adjustments with a steering wheel called the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop. Through this process of steering, we can learn when and if it's time to make a sharp turn called a pivot or whether we should persevere along our current path.

Throughout the process of driving, you always have a clear idea of where you're going.

We often lose sight of the fact that a startup is not just about a product, a technological breakthrough, or even a brilliant idea. A startup is greater than the sum of its parts; it is an acutely human enterprise.

In other words, which of our efforts are value-creating and which are wasteful? This question is at the heart of the lean manufacturing revolution; it is the first question any lean manufacturing adherent is trained to ask.

Zero invites imagination, but small numbers invite questions about whether large lumbers will ever materialize.

At Toyota, this goes by the Japanese term genchi gembutsu, which is one of the most important phrases in the lean manufacturing vocabulary. In English, it is usually translated as a directive to "go and see for yourself" so that business decisions can be based on deep firsthand knowledge.

As you consider building your own minimum viable product, let this simple rule suffice: remove any feature, process, or effort that does not contribute directly to the learning you seek.

This is an important rule: a good design is one that changes customer behavior for the better.

Pivots come in different flavors. The word pivot sometimes is used incorrectly as a synonym for change. A pivot is a special kind of change designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, business model, and engine of growth.

What really matters is not the raw numbers or vanity metrics but the direction and degree of progress.

A common practice is for the inventor of a new product or feature to manage the subsequent resources, team, or division that ultimately commercializes it. As a result, strong creative managers wind up getting stuck working on the growth and optimization of products rather than creating new ones... Every new innovation competes for resources with established projects, and one of the scarcest resources is talent.