Generic common-sense wrapped into new buzz words
The Lean Startup by Eric Reis
Book on Amazon | My review on Amazon
3 out of 5 stars
Reviewed September 29, 2012
The lean startup gives a lot of common-sense advice to entrepreneurs starting anew as well as teams within large companies wanting to operate somewhat independently. There are some concepts in the book – especially about identifying the correct metrics to help sustain the business – that one can apply in any context large or small. However, in trying to address such a large and varied audience, the scope is too generic and diluted. Also there are a lot of buzz phrases such as “vanity metrics”, “disruptive innovation”, etc. – all more or less fuzzily defined and repeatedly used for effect.
If you are looking for a defined process to attain a sustainable, growing business, this book can serve as a starting point; then you would need to define exactly how to translate these principles to your specific case, which is what I guess the author intended. The author illustrates his principles with a lot of anecdotes and case studies, but I found them superficial – interesting, but not especially helpful if I were to start my own business.
I found the writing style repetitive and self-serving, with too many references to the author’s consultancy on the same topic. There are also a lot of annoying and pointless references to other chapters within the same book, such as “As you will see in Chapter 11, …” or “As we saw in Chapter 2, …” etc. This book could have been condensed into about half of its 290 pages, cutting out waste as it preaches.
Overall I’d recommend it as light reading if you like reading business self-help books – not sure about value for money though. I personally read a borrowed copy.
