What is a Lean Startup?

Lean doesn’t mean cheap or small.  The term actually originates from Lean Manufacturing and can best be described below:

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively.  It relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counterintuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and help us learn what customers actually want.   It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, 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 vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late.

– Eric Ries, The Lean Startup