Read a Book on Building a Startup

There are right and wrong ways to build a startup. The wrong way is to start by incorporating a company, jump straight into product development, spend a year banging your head against the wall when customers don’t rush to buy it, and eventually shut it down. Research shows the number one reason startups fail is that they build a product nobody wants.

The right way is to develop your product based on early customer feedback. This requires a systematic approach, which you can learn by studying the Lean Startup methodology and agile development.

 

The Lean Startup Method: Build Products Customers Actually Want

Building the wrong product is the original sin of startups. The Lean Startup method was created to solve this problem. It provides a systematic approach to developing both your product and business model, ensuring you’re building something customers truly want—before you spend a lot of money and time on development.

Here’s the short version:

• Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
• Sell the MVP to customers and gather honest feedback from their behavior.
• Use that data to guide further product development.

 

The Benefits of Lean Startup

Imagine you have an idea for a mobile app. Even the simplest app, good enough just to pilot the idea, could cost over €30,000 to have built. Angel investors are very unlikely to fund an untested idea, so you’d have to finance it yourself—through savings, loans, friends, or family. Are you ready to risk your own money on an untested business concept? Probably not.

With the Lean Startup approach, you can both save the money you would have spent on coding and greatly increase your chances of building a scalable company. Lean Startup offers plenty of examples for creating your first MVP without writing a single line of code. You can even sell it for real money to customers. Only once there’s proven demand should you invest in fully developing the product or app—at which point investors may become interested.

 

The Startup Founder’s Essential Books

There are 3 books that every founder should know. These bestsellers have helped countless entrepreneurs succeed:

• The Lean Startup – Eric Ries
• Running Lean – Ash Maurya
• Scrum – Jeff Sutherland

Don’t just read them once—use them as working manuals throughout your journey. They will help you answer countless questions about building a startup and developing a product.

 

This Startup Guide is Based on Lean Startup

The guide you’re reading is built on the principles of the books above. Its purpose is to simplify their concepts into clear, actionable steps. At the end of each step, you’ll find references to the relevant book pages so you can dig deeper into each topic.

I strongly recommend ordering the books above and reading them carefully. You can find them for a reasonable price on Amazon.