Lean Startups

Most startups fail… but many of those failures are preventable. This is just as true for one person in a garage as it is for a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom, since Eric Ries defines a “startup” as any organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty.

In an age when companies need to innovate more than ever, Ries provides a scientific approach to penetrating the fog of uncertainty to discover a path to a successful, sustainable business.

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, the Lean Startup approach relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, and a number of counter-intuitive practices that:

• shorten product development cycles
• measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics
• learn what customers really want
• enable a company to shift directions with agility — altering plans inch by inch and minute by minute, rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans.

The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs — in companies of all sizes — a way to test their visions continuously, to adapt and adjust the way their companies are built and new products are launched… before it’s too late.

Presenter(s)

Enterpreneur Eric Ries is the author of the popular blog Startup Lessons Learned and upcoming book on Lean Startups. He co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU, his 3rd startup... and has had plenty of startup failures along the way.

An Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School, Eric has advised a number of startups, large companies, and venture capital firms on business and product strategy. His Lean Startup methodology has been written about in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, the Huffington Post, and many other publications.