Looking to get started?
Below are resources that have been useful throughout my journey over the years.
Ursache, Marius. 2019. “Problem Statement Canvas for Startups and Innovation Teams.” Metabeta. March 27, 2019.
This is where every entrepreneur needs to start. Before you specify a product, start development, or meet with customers, first articulate what you believe about the problem you solve. The Problem Statement Canvas provides an excellent framework for capturing what you know about the problem and a method for uncovering the opportunity that may exist and the competitive advantage you can create.
Fitzpatrick, Rob. 2013. The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You. North Charleston, SC: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
If you are an engineer, anyone not used to talking with customers, or a founder who can’t stop talking about their product long enough to understand a customer’s real problem, you definitely need this book. The Mom Test is a great resource for how to engage customers in a discussion about the problem they face.
Schwartzfarb, Amos. 2021. Sell More Faster: The Ultimate Sales Playbook for Start-Ups. Gildan Media Corporation.
Sell More Faster is a structured approach to defining who you are selling to. It applies some lean startup concepts and provides resources to help the reader understand the basics of early-stage startup sales.
Blank, Steven Gary. 2005. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win. 3rd ed. K & S Ranch Consulting.
Steve Blank’s book formed the basis for what has become a movement. The book is rich with information about Customer Development, but may be, at times, overwhelming.
Additional Resources
Ries, Eric. 2011. The Lean Startup. New York, NY: Crown Publishing Group.
Eric Ries’ book took the concepts of customer development first presented by Steve Blank and made them easier to understand. With his easy-to-read writing style and personal examples, Eric created the perfect book to present a new way for technology entrepreneurs to think about their startup.
Furr, Nathan, and Paul Ahlstrom. 2011. Nail It Then Scale It: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation. Nisi Institute.
Nail It Then Scale It is a practical guide to applying lean startup concepts. It combines high-level principles, and a step-by-step guide of what key actions successful entrepreneurs take to reduce risk and increase success. For additional resources - https://www.nailthenscale.com/.
Maurya, Ash. 2022. Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works. 3rd ed. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.
Running Lean is a practical guide to applying ideas and concepts from lean startup, business model design, design thinking, and jobs-to-be-done. In addition to presenting a step-by-step example, Ash also introduces the Lean Canvas. For additional resources click here.
Parker, Dave. 2021. Trajectory: Startup: Ideation to Product/Market Fit. BenBella Books.
In addition to being an indispensable resource which covers the full entrepreneurial journey, chapter 11 of Trajectory: Startup presents fourteen business models along with recommended metrics to track.
Moore, Geoffrey A. 1995. Inside the Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley’s Cutting Edge. United Kingdom: HarperCollins.
Geoffrey presents the chasm model and bowling alley market development strategy. Geoffrey’s description of being ‘inside the tornado’ is very similar if not fundamental to the definition of product/market fit.
Moore, Geoffrey. 1999. Crossing the Chasm. New York, NY: HarperBusiness.
Geoffrey presents his basic theory on the dynamics of early markets and market development strategy. He also walks the reader through target-customer characterization with an illustrative example of ‘A Day in the Life’.
Cleveland, Bruce, and Wildcat Venture Partners. 2019. Traversing the Traction Gap. New York, NY: Diversion Books.
Bruce and his partners at Wildcat Ventures expanded on the chasm model and bowling alley market development first introduced by Geoffrey Moore.
Eric Ries, 2017. The Startup Way: How Entrepreneurial Management Transforms Culture and Drives Growth. London, England: Portfolio Penguin.
The Startup Way, goes further in describing the concepts and providing more generic applications of lean startup processes to a corporate setting. It shows how to apply the concepts more generically and provides examples which are easy for the reader to follow.
Lencioni, P. M. 2020. The Motive - Why so Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities. Nashville, TN: John Wiley & Sons.
The Motive is a leadership fable about how to be a connected CEO. The book does a great job presenting a situation where an entitled CEO thinks he is leading his company but has abdicated his leadership – instead believing he is CEO because he deserves it.
Blank, Steve, and Bob Dorf. 2020. The Startup Owner’s Manual the Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company. Nashville, TN: John Wiley & Sons.
The Startup Owner’s Manual® is an updated and more concise version of Steve Blank’s original book. It covers the first two stages of Customer Development – Customer Discovery and Customer Validation. The best practices, lessons, and tips found in the book are a great resource for entrepreneurs. Some of the original concepts from The Four Steps to the Epiphany have been updated and expanded in this newer version.
Feld, Brad, and Jason Mendelson. 2017. Venture Deals: Be Smarter than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist. 3rd ed. Nashville, TN: John Wiley & Sons.
This is a great resource for entrepreneurs who are unfamiliar with the typical terms around fundraising.
Wasserman, Noam. 2021. The Founder’s Dilemmas the Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
This is a great resource for entrepreneurs who are unfamiliar with the typical terms around entrepreneurship in general such as equity ownership.
Glaser, Judith E. 2016. Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. Routledge.
Cohn, Alisa. 2021. From Start-up to Grown-up: Grow Your Leadership to Grow Your Business. London, England: Kogan Page.
Osterwalder, Alexander, and Yves Pigneur. 2013. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. 1st ed. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Christensen, Clayton M. 2016. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Christensen, Clayton M., and Michael E. Raynor. 2013. The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Christensen, Clayton M., Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan. 2016. Competing against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice. HarperBusiness.
Doerr, John. 2018. Measure What Matters: OKRs: The Simple Idea That Drives 10x Growth. London, England: Portfolio Penguin.
Croll, Alistair. 2013. Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media.