SXSW 2013 Sampler

We urge you, the reader, to do the same
with ideas and approaches presented in
this book.
Why Read (Be) The
Lean Entrepreneur?
Our mission in writing Th e Lean Entrepreneur
is threefold:
1. To describe why our economy is primed
for a new wave of entrepreneurship
using new methods of disruptive
innovation.
2. To provide you real-world examples of
how entrepreneurs are creating new
markets and disrupting others.
3. To show you how you can get started
creating value.
Th e context of Th e Lean Entrepreneur
is an iterative, customer-centric, datainformed
business development approach
in the face of market uncertainty. Although,
to some degree, all businesses operate in
conditions of market uncertainty, all such
conditions are not created equal. Market
uncertainty can be described by an innovation
spectrum stretching from lesser market
uncertainty when undertaking sustaining
innovation to greater market uncertainty
when pursuing truly disruptive innovation.
Uncertainty and innovation are a duality.
Without the former, there is no opportunity
for the latter. True disruptive innovation
can only happen in environments in which
the fi nal product, and its value proposition,
price, marketing, sales channels, and, most
importantly, its customer are, at best, educated
guesses but, more than likely, almost
completely unknown.
Th e inverse is also true: If one is developing
products for which the value proposition,
price, marketing, sales channels, and
market segments are known or very likely to
be known; then iterative, customer-centric,
data-driven approaches as espoused by Th e
Lean Entrepreneur may be suboptimal.
Suffi ce it to say, when the value proposition
is known and successfully delivered by a
business to a known customer, the methods
of execution used by its owners and
employees are good enough, at least for now.
Perhaps they could become more effi cient
or less wasteful, but to instruct successful
businesses on how to be more effi cient is not
our ambition.
As you read Th e Lean Entrepreneur, we’ll
make the case that innovating in uncertainty
requires a highly iterative approach. We’ll
also make the case that a disproportionate
part of your business model is ultimately
determined not by command-and-control
diktats from the executive offi ces of your
company or even your own personal desires
but implicitly by the market segment you
hope to provide value for. Th e sooner you
grok that your customers have signifi cant
de facto control over the destiny of your
business, the better for you, your customers,
your employees, your colleagues, your
shareholders, and other stakeholders in your
business.
To belabor the point, it is your market
segment, not you, that determines how you
distribute your product, how much they are
willing to pay, what sort of messaging they
respond to, and for what job they are in need
of hiring a product. In other words, other
than the fact that you can choose whether
to serve a particular segment, it is up to the
segment to decide whether you should be
given a shot.
Since iterative, customer-centric, datainformed
product development approaches
to creating value predate this book, is this
simply a gussied-up rehash of previous
thinking?
Short answer: No.
We hear time and time again that the
greatest contribution made by Eric Ries and
the Lean Startup is the lexicon. It provides
a language for anyone practicing entrepreneurship
to talk about how to do meaningful
Introduction xix