Weekly Book Club - 005 - 精益创业

One book per week:)

(The English version follows)

从今天开始，每周六的荐书与 Weekly Book Club 合并，所以每周一到五是照常的 Daily Productivity Sharing，周六改为 Weekly Book Club，周日休息一天。

今天推荐的是 Lean Startup 这本书，算是硅谷的三大创业圣经之一（另外两本是 The Hard Thing About Hard Things 和 Zero to One）。正好身边有几位朋友走向/行走在创业的路上，今天的分享算是一点点小小的礼物给这几位朋友。

The business and marketing functions of a startup should be considered as important as engineering and product development and therefore deserve an equally rigorous methodology to guide them.

The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build—the thing customers want and will pay for—as quickly as possible.

Yet if the fundamental goal of entrepreneurship is to engage in organization building under conditions of extreme uncertainty, its most vital function is learning.

This is true startup productivity: systematically figuring out the right things to build.

For startups, the role of strategy is to help figure out the right questions to ask.

Early adopters use their imagination to fill in what a product is missing.

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.

The rate of growth depends primarily on three things: the profitability of each customer, the cost of acquiring new customers, and the repeat purchase rate of existing customers.

Companies of any size that have a working engine of growth can come to rely on the wrong kind of metrics to guide their actions.

Most important, teams working in this system begin to measure their productivity according to validated learning, not in terms of the production of new features.

Startup productivity is not about cranking out more widgets or features. It is about aligning our efforts with a business and product that are working to create value and drive growth.

The true measure of runway is how many pivots a startup has left: the number of opportunities it has to make a fundamental change to its business strategy.

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.

Sustainable growth is characterized by one simple rule: New customers come from the actions of past customers.

There are always a zillion new ideas about how to make the product better floating around, but the hard truth is that most of those ideas make a difference only at the margins.

If either company wants to increase its rate of growth, it can do so in one of two ways: increase the revenue from each customer or drive down the cost of acquiring a new customer.

Startups occasionally ask me to help them evaluate whether they have achieved product/market fit. It’s easy to answer: if you are asking, you’re not there yet.

Getting a startup’s engine of growth up and running is hard enough, but the truth is that every engine of growth eventually runs out of gas.

At all these junctures, it is essential that someone with sufficient authority be present to insist that the process be followed, that its recommendations be implemented, and to act as a referee if disagreements flare up.

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.

Switching to validated learning feels worse before it feels better.

为了庆祝改版，今天的 Weekly Book Club 对所有人开放：The Lean Startup。当然，如果你想读到更多的精彩书摘，还是请加入我们。

如果你想更好地管理时间，并且减轻自己的压力，不妨试试 BRNR List

如果你也想成为更高效的人，欢迎加入我们的 TG group

也欢迎订阅我们的 TG channel

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Starting today, every Saturday's book recommendation is merged with Weekly Book Club, so every Monday through Friday will be the Daily Productivity Sharing, with Saturdays changing to Weekly Book Club and Sundays taking a day off.

Today's recommendation is Lean Startup, one of the three Silicon Valley startup bibles (the other two are The Hard Thing About Hard Things and Zero to One). Since there are a couple of friends who are on the road to entrepreneurship, this is a small gift to them.

Startup productivity is not about cranking out more widgets or features. It is about aligning our efforts with a business and product that are working to create value and drive growth.

The true measure of runway is how many pivots a startup has left: the number of opportunities it has to make a fundamental change to its business strategy.

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.

Sustainable growth is characterized by one simple rule: New customers come from the actions of past customers.

There are always a zillion new ideas about how to make the product better floating around, but the hard truth is that most of those ideas make a difference only at the margins.

If either company wants to increase its rate of growth, it can do so in one of two ways: increase the revenue from each customer or drive down the cost of acquiring a new customer.

Startups occasionally ask me to help them evaluate whether they have achieved product/market fit. It’s easy to answer: if you are asking, you’re not there yet.

Getting a startup’s engine of growth up and running is hard enough, but the truth is that every engine of growth eventually runs out of gas.

At all these junctures, it is essential that someone with sufficient authority be present to insist that the process be followed, that its recommendations be implemented, and to act as a referee if disagreements flare up.

1. Be tolerant of all mistakes the first time. 2. Never allow the same mistake to be made twice.

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.

Switching to validated learning feels worse before it feels better.

为了庆祝改版，今天的 Weekly Book Club 对所有人开放：The Lean Startup。当然，如果你想读到更多的精彩书摘，还是请加入我们。

如果你想更好地管理时间，并且减轻自己的压力，不妨试试 BRNR List

如果你也想成为更高效的人，欢迎加入我们的 TG group

也欢迎订阅我们的 TG channel

---

Starting today, every Saturday's book recommendation is merged with Weekly Book Club, so every Monday through Friday will be the Daily Productivity Sharing, with Saturdays changing to Weekly Book Club and Sundays taking a day off.

Today's recommendation is Lean Startup, one of the three Silicon Valley startup bibles (the other two are The Hard Thing About Hard Things and Zero to One). Since there are a couple of friends who are on the road to entrepreneurship, this is a small gift to them.

The business and marketing functions of a startup should be considered as important as engineering and product development and therefore deserve an equally rigorous methodology to guide them.

The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build—the thing customers want and will pay for—as quickly as possible.

Yet if the fundamental goal of entrepreneurship is to engage in organization building under conditions of extreme uncertainty, its most vital function is learning.

This is true startup productivity: systematically figuring out the right things to build.

For startups, the role of strategy is to help figure out the right questions to ask.

Early adopters use their imagination to fill in what a product is missing.

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.

The rate of growth depends primarily on three things: the profitability of each customer, the cost of acquiring new customers, and the repeat purchase rate of existing customers.

Companies of any size that have a working engine of growth can come to rely on the wrong kind of metrics to guide their actions.

Most important, teams working in this system begin to measure their productivity according to validated learning, not in terms of the production of new features.

Startup productivity is not about cranking out more widgets or features. It is about aligning our efforts with a business and product that are working to create value and drive growth.

The true measure of runway is how many pivots a startup has left: the number of opportunities it has to make a fundamental change to its business strategy.

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.

There are always a zillion new ideas about how to make the product better floating around, but the hard truth is that most of those ideas make a difference only at the margins.

If either company wants to increase its rate of growth, it can do so in one of two ways: increase the revenue from each customer or drive down the cost of acquiring a new customer.

Startups occasionally ask me to help them evaluate whether they have achieved product/market fit. It’s easy to answer: if you are asking, you’re not there yet.

Getting a startup’s engine of growth up and running is hard enough, but the truth is that every engine of growth eventually runs out of gas.

At all these junctures, it is essential that someone with sufficient authority be present to insist that the process be followed, that its recommendations be implemented, and to act as a referee if disagreements flare up.

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.

Switching to validated learning feels worse before it feels better.

To celebrate the revamp, today's Weekly Book Club is open to all:The Lean Startup. If you want to read more great excerpts from the book, please join us.

Try our sustainable productivity tool BRNR List