The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Part Two
, we have looked at a startup idea from its initial leaps
of faith, tested it with a minimum viable product, used innovation
accounting and actionable metrics to evaluate the results, and made
the decision to pivot or persevere.
I have treated these subjects in great detail to prepare for what

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I have treated these subjects in great detail to prepare for what
comes next. On the page, these processes may seem clinical, slow,
and simple. In the real world, something di erent is needed. We
have learned to steer when moving slowly. Now we must learn to
race. Laying a solid foundation is only the rst step toward our real
destination: acceleration.

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Part Three

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Part Three
ACCELERATE

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Start Your Engines
Most of the decisions startups face are not clear-cut. How often
should you release a product? Is there a reason to release weekly
rather than daily or quarterly or annually? Product releases incur
overhead, and so from an e ciency point of view, releasing often
leaves less time to devote to building the product. However,
waiting too long to release can lead to the ultimate waste: making
something that nobody wants.
How much time and energy should companies invest in
infrastructure and planning early on in anticipation of success?
Spend too much and you waste precious time that could have been
spent learning. Spend too little and you may fail to take advantage
of early success and cede market leadership to a fast follower.
What should employees spend their days doing? How do we hold
people accountable for learning at an organizational level?
Traditional departments create incentive structures that keep
people focused on excellence in their specialties: marketing, sales,
product development. But what if the company’s best interests are
served by cross-functional collaboration? Startups need
organizational structures that combat the extreme uncertainty that is
a startup’s chief enemy.
The lean manufacturing movement faced similar questions on the
factory oor. Their answers are relevant for startups as well, with
some modifications.
The critical rst question for any lean transformation is: which

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The critical rst question for any lean transformation is: which
activities create value and which are a form of waste? Once you
understand this distinction, you can begin using lean techniques to
drive out waste and increase the e ciency of the value-creating
activities. For these techniques to be used in a startup, they must be
adapted to the unique circumstances of entrepreneurship. Recall
from 
Chapter 3
that value in a startup is not the creation of stu ,
but rather validated learning about how to build a sustainable
business. What products do customers really want? How will our
business grow? Who is our customer? Which customers should we
listen to and which should we ignore? These are the questions that
need answering as quickly as possible to maximize a startup’s
chances of success. That is what creates value for a startup.
I n