Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works (Lean Series)

Ash Maurya

We live in an age of unparalleled opportunity for innovation. We’re building more products than ever before, but most of them fail—not because we can’t complete what we set out 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, based on his own experience in building a wide array of products from high-tech to no-tech. Throughout, he builds on the ideas and concepts of several innovative methodologies, including the Lean Startup, Customer Development, and bootstrapping.

“Running Lean” is a book about the Lean Startup methodology, a framework for building startups that focuses on quickly and efficiently testing assumptions and validating product ideas. The author, Ash Maurya, presents the Lean Startup approach as a series of iterations, or cycles, that move a startup from “Plan A” to a plan that actually works.

1. Start with a problem-solution fit, not just a product idea.
2. Validate your business model by testing assumptions through experiments.
3. Identify and focus on your target customer segments.
4. Create a minimum viable product (MVP) to validate product-market fit.
5. Use metrics to measure progress and make data-driven decisions.
6. Prioritize and continuously reassess what’s most important.
7. Build a learning organization by continuously experimenting and iterating.
8. Build a culture of innovation by encouraging risk-taking and learning from failure.
9. Continuously refine your business model by pivoting as needed.
10. Focus on creating value for customers and don’t get bogged down by features and functionality.