Lessons Learned

The Hacker Way

2012-02-01T14:39:00.000-08:00

I don't normally comment on the day's news, but I want to make an exception today to share something from Facebook's S-1 filing. Over the next few days, astronomical amounts of attention are going to be paid to Facebook's incredible business results: the 800+ million active users, the $3.7 billion (!) in revenue, and their growth rates, too. I hope at least some of that attention will be paid to the culture and process that made those results possible. To that end, I want to quote briefly from Mark Zuckerberg's letter to shareholders. He calls their internal approach to continuous improvement and iteration The Hacker Way. It is a 21st-century manifesto for a new way of doing business. Here's a brief excerpt:

Simply put: we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.

And we think this is a good way to build something. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits.

By focusing on our mission and building great services, we believe we will create the most value for our shareholders and partners over the long term — and this in turn will enable us to keep attracting the best people and building more great services. We don’t wake up in the morning with the primary goal of making money, but we understand that the best way to achieve our mission is to build a strong and valuable company.

This is how we think about our IPO as well. We’re going public for our employees and our investors. We made a commitment to them when we gave them equity that we’d work hard to make it worth a lot and make it liquid, and this IPO is fulfilling our commitment. As we become a public company, we’re making a similar commitment to our new investors and we will work just as hard to fulfill it.

The Hacker Way

As part of building a strong company, we work hard at making Facebook the best place for great people to have a big impact on the world and learn from other great people. We have cultivated a unique culture and management approach that we call the Hacker Way.

The word “hacker” has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done. Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I’ve met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world.

The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.

Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of Facebook. We have the words “Done is better than perfect” painted on our walls to remind ourselves to always keep shipping.

Hacking is also an inherently hands-on and active discipline. Instead of debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what works. There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices: “Code wins arguments.”

Hacker culture is also extremely open and meritocratic. Hackers believe that the best idea and implementation should always win — not the person who is best at lobbying for an idea or the person who manages the most people.

To encourage this approach, every few months we have a hackathon, where everyone builds prototypes for new ideas they have. At the end, the whole team gets together and looks at everything that has been built. Many of our most successful products came out of hackathons, including Timeline, chat, video, our mobile development framework and some of our most important infrastructure like the HipHop compiler.

To make sure all our engineers share this approach, we require all new engineers — even managers whose primary job will not be to write code — to go through a program called Bootcamp where they learn our codebase, our tools and our approach. There are a lot of folks in the industry who manage engineers and don’t want to code themselves, but the type of hands-on people we’re looking for are willing and able to go through Bootcamp.

The examples above all relate to engineering, but we have distilled these principles into five core values for how we run Facebook:

Focus on Impact

If we want to have the biggest impact, the best way to do this is to make sure we always focus on solving the most important problems. It sounds simple, but we think most companies do this poorly and waste a lot of time. We expect everyone at Facebook to be good at finding the biggest problems to work on.

Move Fast

Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they’re more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: “Move fast and break things.” The idea is that if you never break anything, you’re probably not moving fast enough.

Be Bold

Building great things means taking risks. This can be scary and prevents most companies from doing the bold things they should. However, in a world that’s changing so quickly, you’re guaranteed to fail if you don’t take any risks. We have another saying: “The riskiest thing is to take no risks.” We encourage everyone to make bold decisions, even if that means being wrong some of the time.

Be Open

We believe that a more open world is a better world because people with more information can make better decisions and have a greater impact. That goes for running our company as well. We work hard to make sure everyone at Facebook has access to as much information as possible about every part of the company so they can make the best decisions and have the greatest impact.

Build Social Value

Once again, Facebook exists to make the world more open and connected, and not just to build a company. We expect everyone at Facebook to focus every day on how to build real value for the world in everything they do.

Thanks for taking the time to read this letter. We believe that we have an opportunity to have an important impact on the world and build a lasting company in the process. I look forward to building something great together.

The true test of corporate pronouncements and mission statements is not whether they sound good, but rather whether they reflect a real commitment. So on its eight-year anniversary, I think it's appropriate to take a look at what Facebook looked like at the beginning. Here's a brief quote from Zuck's very first press interview, when Facebook had less than one-millionth the users it has today:

After about a week of coding, Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com last Wednesday afternoon. The website combines elements of a standard House face book with extensive profile features that allow students to search for others in their courses, social organizations and Houses.

“Everyone’s been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard,” Zuckerberg said. “I think it’s kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week.”

As of yesterday afternoon, Zuckerberg said over 650 students had registered use thefacebook.com. He said that he anticipated that 900 students would have joined the site by this morning.

“I’m pretty happy with the amount of people that have been to it so far,” he said. “The nature of the site is that each user’s experience improves if they can get their friends to join it.”

Here's to the Zuck I admire, the one that had the courage to launch a simple, useful app in a week, celebrate his first 900 customers, and - for eight straight years - insist on iterating, executing, and building for the long-term. Kudos to the whole Facebook team. I hope your next eight years are just as impressive.

London Calling

2012-01-06T23:02:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Four months ago, The Lean Startup debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. Since then, I have been immersed in a non-stop whirlwind book tour of North America, filled with as many events, interviews, and talks as I could physically manage. On Monday, I’m taking The Lean Startup across the pond to the UK to launch the first international edition.

A complete list of book tour stops for my journey is below. I hope you'll join me, either in person or virtually. You can also stay up-to-date by following me on Twitter or on Plancast.

And for those that have been asking, yes, a host of translations are in the works. I've included a preliminary list at the end of this post.

Tuesday, January 10- Dublin, Ireland

Dublin Lean Startup Meetup

I’ll be there as The Dublin Lean Startup Meetup Group hosts its first meeting at 6:45pm.

Tickets are $25 Euros, and the first 50 registered will get a copy of my book. Register here
Hilton Hotel
Northern Cross, Malahide Rd
Dublin, Ireland D17
Eric Ries will be launching 'The Lean Startup Meetup Group' Dublin on January 10th "Lean startup" is a term coined by Eric Ries. His method advocates the creation of rapid prototypes designed to test market assumptions, and uses customer feedback to evolve them much faster than via more traditional product development practices.

Wednesday, January 11- Dublin, Ireland

I’ll be facilitating in the Internet Growth Acceleration Programme (iGAP) program. For iGAP participants only.

Thursday, January 12- London, England

London School of Economics
At 6:30pm, I’ll present a public lecture at the Department of Management. This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis.

London School of Economics and Political Science
Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
54 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3LJ
Most new businesses fail. But most of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach to business that's being adopted around the world. It is changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. The Lean Startup is about learning what your customers really want. It's about testing your vision continuously, adapting and adjusting before it's too late. Now is the time to think Lean.
This event marks the publication of Eric Ries new book The Lean Startup

Friday, January 13 - Cambridge, England
On Friday morning, I’ll take a train North to Cambridge. The day kicks off with a corporate event at RedGate Software. Employees only. That evening, there will be a casual talk followed by a book signing at The Hauser Forum.

The Hauser Forum

Registration is from 4pm with the talk starting at 4:30pm with an opportunity for Q&A afterwards, followed by drinks and light refreshments. To sign up Please register here.
The Seminar Centre
The Hauser Forum
3 Charles Babbage Road
Cambridge, CB3 0GT
His book, 'The Lean Startup', is an incredible work. Its only flaw is its name. Eric's principles of innovation apply to any organisation of any type and of any size, and not just startups.
Lean is one of the major trends shaping our world and its impact goes beyond just optimizing our supply chains. Lean startups can be the most capital efficient companies in the world, because they strive to prevent energy from being expended uselessly. Human talent, passion, and wisdom is too precious a commodity to allow it to be wasted.

Saturday, January 14 - London, England
On Saturday, I return to London and will pay a virtual visit to the Lean Startup Machine event that is taking place in Palo Alto, California. Sign up here.

Sunday, January 15 - London, England

The LeanCamp Unconference

Topics will be focused on current challenges of the Leancamp participants. Early bird tickets are sold out, but more tickets will be released on Saturday, January 7. Register here .
Roberts Engineering Building
University College London
Torrington Place (@ Malet Place)
WC1E 6BT London

Monday, January 16- London England

Business Leaders Network Event

At 6pm I’ll take the stage to talk about the ideas behind The Lean Startup and what it means to apply those ideas in practice. After the talk and Q&A, there will be a networking reception and everyone will leave with a complimentary copy of the book.

Ticket information here
Mermaid Theatre
Puddle Dock
Blackfriars, London, EC4V 3DB

Tuesday, January 17- London, England

TechHub
I’ll return to TechHub, where I will coach three TechHub Member companies live on stage. This will be followed by plenty of time for Q&A with the audience. This event sold out last year.

Register here .
TechHub
76-80 City Road, EC1Y 2BJ
London

As always, if you're able to come by an event, please do say hello. See you in Europe!

Coming Soon: other international editions of The Lean Startup

Germany - Muenchner (March 2012)
France – Pearson (March 2012)
Spain - Planeta / Gestion 2000 imprint (February 2012)
Brazil - Leya / Lua de Papel imprint (first half of 2012)
Japan – Nikkei BP (Spring 2012)
Taiwan - Flaneur Co. (Summer 2012)
Russia – Alpina (July 2012)
Thailand - WeLearn
Korea – Insight Press
China - China Citic Press

STARTUP IS VISION

2011-11-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

The following is a rather unusual guest post. One of the more surreal parts of speaking publicly and putting ideas out into the ether is to watch other people run with them. I can't seem to help tuning into comment threads on blogs, news aggregators, etc. Internet people being what they are, a lot of these comments are nasty, brutish, and short.

However, every once in a while, I come across someone who consistently corrects other people's mistakes. Someone who seems to get it. And who am I to complain if that someone happens to be a giant robot dinosaur named FAKEGRIMLOCK? As it turns out, FAKEGRIMLOCK is a writer and artist with a unique style. This guest post has been authored entirely by him, and views expressed are his own.

What follows is FAKEGRIMLOCK's perspective on the importance of vision in a startup. He understands that vision and iteration are allies, for there can be no science without vision. Only vision is worth testing. I'll let him take it from here...

STARTUP MORE THAN BRAIN, MORE THAN MONEY, MORE THAN WORK HARD.

STARTUP IS VISION.

STARTUP IS MAKE FIST OF CODE, PUT IT THROUGH THE WORLD.

VISION IS PUT FIST IN RIGHT PLACE, BREAK WORLD IN HALF.

FIRST THING DISRUPT SELF

EVERYONE GOOD AT SEE CAN'T. EVERYONE LIVE IN WORLD FULL OF IMPOSSIBLE.

EVERYTHING THAT MATTER IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL SOMEONE DO IT ANYWAY.

STOP BEING EVERYONE. STARE AT WHY NOT UNTIL IT GIVE UP AND BECOME HOW TO.

STARTUP IS DO THING EVERYONE HAVE EXCUSE NOT TO.

VISION IS STOP EXCUSES, MAKE FUTURE INSTEAD.

NOW GO BIG. THEN BIGGER

WHAT YOUR PRODUCT CHANGE?

IF ANSWER NOT "WORLD", GO HOME. WORLD HAVE ENOUGH LITTLE IDEA. GET OUT OF LINE, DO SOMETHING BIG. NO CAN HAVE VISION LOOKING AT SOMEONE'S BACK.

WHAT IF ONLY HAVE LITTLE IDEA? SMASH IDEA. THROW AWAY DETAIL. THROW AWAY FEATURE. THROW AWAY CAN'T.

INSIDE LITTLE IDEA IS BIG PROBLEM HELD DOWN BY CAN'T. SET IT FREE.

STARTUP IS SOLVE PROBLEM NO ONE ELSE WILL.

VISION IS SOLVE PROBLEM NO ONE ELSE SEE.

SET COURSE TO AWESOME

SMART STARTUP BUILD, ITERATE, FAIL FAST.

WITHOUT VISION FAIL FAST IS JUST LOTS OF FAIL.

VISION NOT HOW. VISION IS WHERE. TAKE EVERYTHING YOU DOING THAT NOT MOVE TOWARDS VISION.

STOP DOING IT.

NOW EVERYTHING MOVE IN RIGHT DIRECTION. TOWARDS WIN. EVEN FAIL.

STARTUP IS FAIL INTO BUILD IMPOSSIBLE.

VISION IS FAIL INTO WIN EVERYTHING.

TEST TODAY, NOT TOMORROW

TEST IMPORTANT. TEST TELL YOU IF BUILD THING RIGHT. TEST ABOUT DETAILS.

ONLY WAY TEST VISION IS WIN.

VISION NOT A BULLETPOINT. NOT GO IN SPREADSHEET. THERE NO ALGORITHM FOR AWESOME.

DETAILS IMPORTANT. FOR ENGINEER. BUILD TOMORROW NOT SAME AS WHAT TOMORROW TO BUILD.

STARTUP IS SEE WINDOW, START BUILDING WINGS.

VISION IS JUMP OUT WINDOW, TRUST WINGS HAPPEN BEFORE GROUND.

NOW MAKE FIST

INTERNET FULL OF WAY TO MAKE THINGS BETTER. LOTS OF STARTUPS OUT THERE MAKE THINGS BETTER THAN YOU.

ONLY YOU FULL OF SEE WHAT THING TO BUILD.

VISION IS SEE WHAT OTHERS NOT, DO WHAT OTHERS WON'T, WIN WHEN OTHERS CAN'T.

VISION LIKE STORY WITH MOUSE AND CHEESE. SOMEONE MOVE CHEESE, MOUSE FORGET CHEESE, INVENT MACHINE GUN AND EAT CAT.

BE THAT MOUSE.

That old-time startup religion

2011-11-15T05:25:00.000-08:00

Warning: the video below may be offensive to some readers. It contains irreverent use of religious language. Viewer discretion is advised.

So there I was, on stage in front of a large crowd, when Jason says "Has anyone seen the movie Apostle?" That's when I knew things were about to get interesting.

I was in Los Angeles on book tour a few weeks ago. The Los Angeles Lean Startup Circle arranged a spectacular event. I was interviewed - live on stage - by Jason Calacanis for This Week in Startups. The video became Episode #199, and you'll get to watch it below.

Jason's a controversial - and always entertaining - character. He's the founder and CEO of Mahalo, as well as the This Week In network. Oh and he also plays the occasional hand of televised high-stakes poker. So I really did not know what to expect when I met him on stage. For just about an hour, we had an in-depth interview, with Jason asking the kind of questions you only get from someone who has lived through the real highs and lows of entrepreneurship. I thought things were going well.

And then things took a pretty hilarious turn. Jason decides, on the spot, that we're going to have our very own revival meeting. In a full-on southern preacher accent, he invites entrepreneurs up on stage for some "hands on healing" as they share their real stories of problems, challenges, and obstacles in their startups. And, to my great surprise, people come forward. To be honest, I thought it was going to be a disaster, but I was wrong. The rest you have to watch for yourself.

Eric Ries of Lean Startup - TWiST #199

(The "Praise Jesus" starts at about 56 minutes in. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

I wanted to share this video with you, and not just because it is extremely entertaining. At the end of the session, I can tell that something is starting to bother Jason. We've been talking all along about pivots, vanity metrics, and validated learning. And I can see it start to dawn on him that, like the founders we've been "healing" all night, he has some questions about Mahalo that he wants answered.

And so we have a conversation, live on stage, about whether and how Mahalo should pivot from their current business (educational web videos) to a place where they're having unexpected success (paid iPad instructional video apps). A few days later, I noticed this in my newsfeed: Mahalo Lays Off 25 Percent for Shift to Apps From Video. And a few days after that, Mahalo got in touch to ask if I'd come into their studio to record a video instructional app based on The Lean Startup. After all that, how could I say no?

So if you'd like to see the next chapter in this story, you're cordially invited to a video shoot, which will take place next Monday, November 21, at Mahalo World HQ in Los Angeles. I'll be lecturing, we'll take questions from the audience, and - if anyone has the courage to come on stage - we'll even do some "hands-on healing" case studies with real entrepreneurs. Want to come? Sign up here.

See you Monday.

Case Study: The Nordstrom Innovation Lab

2011-10-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

Today's case study answers a bunch of questions all at once about Lean Startup principles: can they be used inside a Fortune 500 company? can they be used to sell physical low-tech products? can they be used in a retail store? I have been confidently answering questions like these non-stop for the past few months. I do believe the answer is yes. But, as the saying goes, seeing is believing. And now you won't have to take my word for it.

Nordstrom is currently ranked #254 on the Fortune 500 (yes, I looked it up) with over $9 billion in revenues. Scrappy startup they are not. And yet they face the same competitive pressures that are causing every modern company to take a long, hard look at the process they use to innovate. Anyone who has read The Innovator's Dilemma knows just how hard it is for a company that has been successful to invest in potentially disruptive innovations.

I have been talking to JB Brown, the manager of the Nordstrom Innovation Lab about publishing a case study. At the same time, Nordstrom had sent a camera crew to document the Lab at work. When I saw the rough cut of the videos they were producing, I knew they would be a powerful teaching tool. It's one thing to talk about "rapid experimentation" and "validated learning" as abstract concepts. It's quite another to see them in action, in a real-world setting. Proving his understanding of minimum viable product, JB suggested that we start small, by posting a "case study MVP." That's how this post came to be.

Below, you'll find two videos: one about the lab, and one containing a case study of the team at work. Watch them both. If you have questions, JB has generously agreed to make himself available to answer them in a future post. Just leave your question as a comment to this post. If there's sufficient interest, we'll expand this MVP.

"A Lean Startup Inside a Fortune 500 Company"

"We Really Don't Know What the Features Are Yet..."

Here are some highlights that I found especially interesting:

One-week iterations. One of the hardest things about corporate innovation is breaking through the slowness that is the default speed for most initiatives. The Nordstrom Innovation Lab solves this problem by working in one-week increments. In the second video above, you'll see them build an entire new product in one week end-to-end.
Genchi gembutsu. This is one of my favorite concepts from the Toyota Production System. It translates roughly as "go and see for yourself" - it's the Toyota version of "get out of the building." By talking face-to-face with customers, salespeople, and managers in a physical store, the innovation team is able to identify an opportunity that they can execute against extremely quickly. But they go beyond simply "getting out of the building" - they actually set up shop physically in a retail store for the entire week. They build products, test new features, and get feedback all out in the open. You really have to see it to believe it.
Simple, rapid, experiments. I hear all the time that developing for iOS, with its myriad approval delays and deployment obstacles means that you can't use rapid development techniques on that platform. Yet in the video you'll see this team overcome that bias with a little ingenuity. They simply brought two iPads with them. While the app is in development, the sales team is using one iPad, and the developers are working on another. At every break, the sales team swaps iPads with the developers - always using the latest version of the app. (The same technique works with paper prototypes, too.)

Have questions for JB and the rest of the Nordstrom Innovation Lab team? Post them as comments.

Best. Birthday. Ever.

2011-09-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

Last week I turned 33, while on the road. I received an incredible amount of good news all at once. First off, I received the big news that you'll get to read if you open up the paper this coming Sunday: The Lean Startup has debuted at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

The Lean Startup debuts at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller List

Look closely, and you'll see The Lean Startup right below televangelist Joel Osteen and right above The Guinness Book of World Records.

The Wall Street Journal also maintains a bestseller list specifically for business books. The Lean Startup debuted there at #2 as well:

On the very same day, my friend Hiten Shah was the first to spot this strange sight on a local newsstand:

If you click through, you'll get to read a significant excerpt from the book in the current issue of Inc Magazine.

But by far the best part of my birthday was getting to spend it with so many of you. (OK, the Chicago Lean Startup Circle's minimum viable birthday cake was pretty awesome, too). I have spent the past two years working on this book. I have believed all along that - with your help - we could take these ideas to a mainstream audience. You've done your part. By supporting the book in such large numbers, you've put it on the map for thousands of new people: entrepreneurs, managers, investors, and policy makers.

As those people actually get a chance to read the book, we'll find out if I've managed to live up to my part of the bargain. I hope the book is worthy of the faith you all have placed in it.

In any event, thank you. It's been an amazing ride - and the ultimate birthday present.

Updates from the road

2011-09-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Toronto, stop four on my book tour. I thought I'd share a few updates; for a firehose of detailed updates, follow me on Twitter or Plancast.

Bundle Deadline Extended
First things first: remember the Last Lean Startup Bundle, the one that I said was only going to run for 48 hours? Well, I keep getting talked into extending the deadline. I'm glad I did, since some folks have put the extra time to good use. For example, One of my favorite venture firms (who believed early in IMVU), Menlo Ventures, bought a Super Mentor Bundle for their portfolio companies. How cool is that?

However, today is really truly the last day to order the bundle. Monday, September 20, 11pm EST.

The early reviews are in
I've been waiting months to find out how the world at large would react to the book itself, and it's such a relief that the moment is finally here.

I'm extremely honored by this review in the Financial Times:

Every so often a business book comes along that changes how we think about innovation and entrepreneurship. Clay Christensen’s theories on disruptive innovation and Geoffrey Moore’s potent metaphors of “crossing the chasm” from small to mass markets, and going “inside the tornado” of starting a business, have loomed large over entrepreneurial theory for years. Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup has the chops to join this exalted company.

I'm equally proud of the comments and reviews from actual entrepreneurs and practitioners. And I even appreciate the constructive criticisms and other feedback. (And see how I'm resisting the urge to feed the trolls?)

@DavidForrestDavid ForrestCongratulations to @ericries on his new book Lean Startup -theleanstartup.com/book - a MUST READ for any entrepreneur

@CraigRutkunasCraig Rutkunas@ericries I was a bit sceptical because of all the hype, but I'm reading the #LeanStartup and it's awesome. Time well spent Eric.

@rsukumarSukumar RajagopalJust finished reading #leanstartupby @ericries in one sittingamzn.to/razItT ~ ****ing brilliant. Groundbreaking stuff. Must read.

And then there's the nearly 100 reviews on Amazon. Go check them out and, I hope, leave your own contribution.

Photos from the tour
Thanks to the folks at Montabe, there's a realtime image gallery of photos related to the book launch. I appreciate everyone who's taken the time to upload a photo of the book in the wild or a snapshot at one of our launch events. Here's a few of my favorites:

That's it from the road. Having an amazing time. Thank you all so much.

The Lean Startup Book Tour

2011-09-13T05:48:00.000-07:00

Today, September 13, 2011 is launch day! And, for me, it's literally a launch into a crazy amount of travel. For the next two weeks, I'm going to do as many events, interviews, and talks as I physically can. I hope you'll join me, either in person or virtually.

A complete list of book tour stops for the first leg of my journey is below. To stay up-to-date, you can get the firehose of updates by following me on Twitter or for "just the facts" follow me on Plancast.

However BEFORE WE CONTINUE with the list of events, can I ask just one favor? Many of you who pre-ordered the book -especially those of you on Kindle- have already received your copy. The Amazon.com reviews page for the book has just opened to the general public (up until now it's been limited to Amazon Vine reviewers). The first 24 hours are critical in establishing that all-important "average star rating" that tends to settle in. Would you take just a few minutes to post your honest impressions of the book on Amazon? I'd really appreciate it.

Now, on with our regularly scheduled launch...

Tuesday, September 13 - San Francisco

TechCrunch Disrupt
It all begins at TechCrunch Disrupt. At 11:45am I'll be honored to share the stage with two great entrepreneurs:

Introducing The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries with case studies, Intuit’s Scott Cook and Instagram’s Kevin Systrom

And in the evening, the book launch party is also part of Disrupt. We'll be in the concourse from 5:30-7:30pm. Please come celebrate. If you like to support local independent bookstores, Book Passage, one of my favorite SF bookstores will be on hand selling copies, which I'm happy to sign.

Wednesday, September 16 - On your TV

Update: Just got word that I'll be appearing on Bloomberg West at 3pm PST. Be sure to tune in!

Thursday, September 15 - Los Angeles

Drucker Business Forum
It starts bright and early at the Drucker Business Forum, with a breakfast event at 7:45am (talk starts at 8:15). Tickets are $35, which includes a copy of the book (I know you already have one - but give it to a friend?). I have a limited number of free tickets to give away, first-come first-served. You can grab one here. Details:

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful BusinessesTickets $20, $35 includes Ries’ book The City Club on Bunker Hill
333. S. Grand Avenue, 54th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Lean LA + This Week in Startups
Twice on this trip, I'm sitting down with an over-the-top free-wheeling no-holds-barred interviewer that is guaranteed to be entertaining. How could I stop in LA without filming an episode of This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis? Luckily, the amazing Lean LA meetup group has organized to do this in front of an audience, at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Tickets are $30 and include a copy of the book. I'll be signing copies as well. Register here.

A Conversation with Eric Ries

Thursday, September 15, 2011, 7:30 PM

1855 Main St, Santa Monica, CA (map)

Price: $30.00/per person
Eric not only created the term "Lean Startup", he has sparked a movement that is changing the way people think about startups.
In a very special Lean LA event, serial entrepreneur Jason Calacanis from Mahalo and This Week in Startups will interview Eric Ries live on stage at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Friday, September 16 - Seattle

On Friday, I fly to Seattle, where I'll be for two days. The first day kicks off with two corporate events, one at Amazon (in their Fishbowl series) and one at Microsoft. Employees only.

That evening, there will be a casual talk followed by a book signing at Town Hall Seattle (co-sponsored with Lean Startup Seattle).

Friday • September 16 • 6pmHappy Hour with Startup Guru Eric Ries
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (CROWN)
Town Hall Seattle, 1119 8th Avenue, Seattle (Enter on Seneca)
For Eric Ries, a "startup" is an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty, no matter what the size. So how is it best to deal with uncertainty? How does an organization like this thrive? By learning to be rapidly responsive and agile. Ries wants to show you how.
Please Note: Autographed copies of books are only available after the event.
Presented by the Town Hall Center for Civic Life. Series media sponsorship provided by PubliCola. Series supported by The Boeing Company Charitable Trust and the RealNetworks Foundation. Tickets are $5 at brownpapertickets.org or 1.800.838.3006, and at the door beginning at 6pm. Town Hall members receive priority seating.
$26.00 Buy an Autographed Copy

Saturday, September 17 - Seattle

StartupDay 2011 by Startup Weekend & Seattle 2.0

Startup Weekend and Seattle 2.0 are teaming up to put on an awesome all-day conference on Saturday. I'll be the closing keynote at 4:30, but you should really come for the whole day if you can. They've got an amazing line up of speakers, including Sean Ellis, Scott Porad, Rand Fishkin and many more. Register here.

Monday, September 19 - Toronto

My only Canadian stop on the tour is in Toronto at the Rotman School of Management.

Startup Experts Speaker Series @ Rotman5:00 sharp to 6:00pm presentation and Q&ASPEAKER: Eric Ries, Author, Startup Lessons Learned Blog and The Lean Startup (Crown Business, September 13, 2011); Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Harvard Business School; Co-Founder and former Chief Technology Officer, IMVUTOPIC: “The Lean Startup: The Radical New Approach Savvy Entrepreneurs Use to Unleash Creativity, Work Smarter and Get Products to Market Sooner”PLACE: Fleck Atrium (ground floor), Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 105 St. George Street, Toronto (ON)BOOKSALE: additional copies of The Lean Startup will be available for sale at the eventFEE: $30 per person (fee includes HST, the session and 1 copy of The Lean Startup)TO REGISTER: Click Here

Tuesday, September 20 - New York

Unfortunately, all of my events in New York on this trip are closed to the public. Mostly, I'll be doing media and interviews, followed by a reception at IDEO. Never fear, I'll be back in a big way in October, centered around the Web 2.0 Expo.

Wednesday, September 21 - Boston

A big event at Harvard Business School, where I'm returning this year as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. This is event is free and open to the public. The talk itself will be in Burden Auditorium on the HBS campus, followed by a reception & book-signing in the brand-new Harvard i-lab:

5pm: The Rock Center & Harvard i-labpresent: Eric Ries
Hear from Rock Center Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Eric Ries. Eric is the creator of the Lean Startup methodology and the author of the popular entrepreneurship blogStartup Lessons Learned.
6pm: Harvard i-lab reception with Eric Ries
Following the talk with Eric Ries, join us for a reception - the inaugural event - at the Harvard i-lab. Co-sponsored by the Rock Center & the Harvard innovation lab.

Thursday, September 22 - Chicago + Around the World

The Chicago Lean Startup Circle and Northwestern University are hosting me on my birthday. As a birthday present, they've teamed up with Crown to organize a Virtual Book Tour version of this event. If you want to organize your own gathering anywhere in the world, and participate via live simulcast, you're welcome to do so. Just contact Paul Lamb at Random House. Details:

Join us on Thursday, September 22nd for a Conversation with Eric Ries.
Crown Books is releasing Eric Ries' book The Lean Startup in September, and Eric will be at the Chicago Lean Startup Circle on September 22nd for an "Actors Studio" style conversation with Bernhard Kappe. The price of the ticket also includes a copy of Eric's book The Lean Startup.Thanks to Michael Marasco and the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering, we'll be hosting this event at Northwestern University's Thorne Auditorium on Chicago Avenue by the lake.

September 23-26 - TBA

I'll be in New York and then Washington DC for media on these days, but don't have anything public on the schedule to announce.

Tuesday, September 27 - San Francisco

Home, home again.

I'm honored to be hosted by the Commonwealth Club of California, who I've spent many hours listening to on public radio. They obviously have a lot of courage, because not only are they putting me on stage, they've invited Dave McClure to interview me. He's promised to keep it clean enough for radio. We'll see. At least his crazy fonts can't shine through an audio-only medium, so he won't blind anybody.

In all seriousness, I'm really excited about this event. If you can, please come out and join us. It'll be fun.

Eric Ries: The Principles of a Lean Startup

Sep 27 2011 - 6:30pmThe Principles of a Lean StartupEric Ries, Author, The Lean StartupIn conversation with Dave McClure, Founder, 500 Startups
Starting one, working for one, going public with one – startups seem to be the thing to do in SF. But how do you make your startup great? Ries, the guru behind the “Lean Startup” sensation, asks: Is your startup employee-centric and knowledge-obsessed? Is your company functioning at optimal efficiency? Is your office a fun place to work? Ries will reveal what he believes to be the necessary hard facts that lead to a successful startup.
Location: SF Club Office
Time: 6 p.m. check-in, 6:30 p.m. program, 7:30 p.m. book signing/networking reception 
Cost: $20 standard, $12 members, $7 students
Location Blue Room, The Commonwealth Club

As always when I'm on tour, if you're a reader of this blog, please do come say hello. Your support and enthusiasm mean a lot to me. Thanks.

The power of small batches

2011-09-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt from The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses published by Crown Business.

In the book Lean Thinking, James Womack and Daniel Jones recount a story of stuffing newsletters into envelopes with the assistance of one of the author’s two young children. Every envelope had to be addressed, stamped, filled with a letter, and sealed. The daughters, age six and nine, knew how they should go about completing the project: “Daddy, first you should fold all of the newsletters. Then you should attach the seal. Then you should put on the stamps.” Their father wanted to do it the counterintuitive way: complete each envelope one at a time. They told him “that wouldn’t be efficient!” So he and his daughters each took half the envelopes and competed to see who would finish first.

The father won the race, and not just because he is an adult.

The one envelope at a time approach is a faster way of getting the job done even though it seems inefficient. This has been confirmed in many studies, including this one (from LSS Academy):

Why does stuffing one envelope at a time get the job done faster even though it seems like it would be slower? Because our intuition doesn’t take into account the extra time required to sort, stack, and move around the large piles of half- complete envelopes when it’s done the other way. It seems more efficient to repeat the same task over and over, in part because we expect that we will get better at this simple task the more we do it. Unfortunately, in process-oriented work like this, individual performance is not nearly as important as the overall performance of the system.

(If you're skeptical, you're in good company. For a frame-by-frame breakdown of where the time went in that video, see this post.)

But even if the amount of time that each process took was exactly the same, the small batch production approach still would be superior, and for even more counterintuitive reasons. For example, imagine that the letters didn’t fit in the envelopes. With the large- batch approach, we wouldn’t find that out until nearly the end. With small batches, we’d know almost immediately.

All these issues are visible in a process as simple as stuffing envelopes, but they are of real and much greater consequence in the work of every company, large or small. What if it turns out that the customers have decided they don’t want the product? Which process would allow a company to find this out sooner?

Lean manufacturers such as Toyota discovered the benefits of small batches decades ago. When I teach entrepreneurs this method, I often begin with stories about manufacturing. Before long, I can see the questioning looks: what does this have to do with my startup?

But the theory that is the foundation of Toyota’s success can be used to dramatically improve the speed at which startups find validated learning.

Toyota discovered that small batches made their factories more efficient. In contrast, in the Lean Startup the goal is not to produce more stuff efficiently. It is to— as quickly as possible— learn how to build a sustainable business. Think back to the example of envelope stuffing. What if it turns out that the customer doesn’t want the product we’re building? Although this is never good news for an entrepreneur, finding out sooner is much better than finding out later. Working in small batches ensures that a startup can minimize the expenditure of time, money, and effort that ultimately turns out to have been wasted.

Want to know more about how small batches can dramatically change the way you work? Click here to pick up your copy of The Lean Startup.

The Last Lean Startup Bundle: claim $3,000,000 in prizes

2011-09-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

The Lean Startup Book launches in just under a week.

[Forget the verbiage, just show me the deal! OK: do you want 5-100 copies or 100+ copies?]

How many copies will this book sell in its first week – real, hardcover, paper copies? If that number crosses some unknowable threshold, the book will debut as a bestseller, and then an awful lot of people are going to read it. People who would never bother with an entrepreneur’s blog, who may not even see themselves as entrepreneurs: shopkeepers and policy makers, CFO’s and private equity managers, and even future entrepreneurs. With your help, our movement can reach a truly mainstream audience, one that – at least in my humble opinion - truly needs to hear what we have to say.

But there’s no reason we can’t have a little fun along the way. I wanted to create an absolutely irresistible offer, one that would entice you to buy not just a single book – but to buy one for your entire team, entire company, or just for everyone you know. This bundle is 100% stuff I think you will really use. No phony discounts. No free trials. The more books you buy, the more valuable the rewards.

This blog post is going to be long, and below you will see every last detail of every last tier of prizes.

I chose Amazon Web Services to be our marquee reward, and not just for the obvious reason that so many of you are - right this very moment – already hosting on AWS EC2. Almost any startup - in any industry - can use AWS to find and serve customers. I chose AWS because it offers so many different services, from hosting to databases to payments (FPS) to content delivery (CloudFront) - even e-commerce fulfillment (FWS). The AWS team is excited about the book, too, and they’ve stepped up huge: the tiers below contain almost $100,000 in AWS credits. Some of the packages are almost worth buying for that value alone.

But only almost! Because at every level I have tried to give way more value than you’re paying. When you read the descriptions below, you’re going to think the “value” column is crazy. How could it possibly be that high? But I urge you to read the whole thing, check my math, and see if it’s real. Each and every package is worth what it says. Add them all up, and we're talking about $2,933,061.00 worth of prizes. No kidding around here.

Some of the prizes are practical, like Pivotal Tracker, KISSmetrics, Ask Your Target Market, Assistly, Hello Bar and Sauce Labs. I’ve only included services that I believe in and that I think you’re going to use.

Some of the prizes are just fun. My personal favorite (the prize I am secretly hoping won’t sell out so I can skim one for myself): a signed hardcover copy of one of my favorite new books, the crazy 80’s-video-game-themed sci-fi bestseller Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. (Yes, you will get one in the mail, courtesy of my publisher, and his, Crown/Random House). Trust me, when this book gets made into a movie and becomes the next WarGames, you’re going to feel pretty cool having this signed copy on your shelf.

You’ll get awesome video content, including the video Lean Startup course I created exclusively for Udemy. You’ll the complete video recording of the amazing Lean Startup track at SXSW 2011, every single presentation. And many of you will get seven awesome action videos courtesy of Appsumo.

And then there are the special bonus packages, for those who can make use of extremely large quantities of books. I asked some of the top Lean Startup super-mentors to volunteer to be prizes, and they are here. You can get time with me, too. And we’ve even got a spot in the extremely exclusive (and extremely cool) Lean User Experience Residency (LUXr) program, which normally costs $15,000. And, if you are disappointed that my book tour doesn’t take me to your city, you can instruct my publisher to change it.

Truly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Dive in below and see what you think.