The lean entrepreneur

Contents

Special Thanks

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1: Startup Revolution

Which Is to Say, Disruption Hurts

And Cue the Lean Startup

Lean Startup, Please Meet the Lean Entrepreneur

Chapter 2: Vision, Values, and Culture

Vision and Values

Lean into It: The Lean Startup Culture

Over the Horizon: A Framework

Chapter 3: All the Fish in the Sea

Know Your Audience: Why Segmentation Matters

Market Segment

Personas: Create a Fake Customer

Choosing a Market Segment

Chapter 4: Wading in the Value Stream

Articulating the Value Stream

Value-Stream Discovery

Chapter 5: Diving In

Listen to Your Customers—or Not

Customer Interaction

Chapter 6: Viability Experiments

The Infamous Landing Page

Concierge Test

Wizard of Oz Test

Crowd-Funding Test

Prototyping

Chapter 7: Data’s Double-Edged Sword

New Products

Existing Products

Chapter 8: The Valley of Death

Minimum Viable Product

Chapter 9: Real Visionaries Have Funnel Vision

Innovate the Funnel

Growth Waves

Chapter 10: The Final Word

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index

Cover image: @FAKEGRIMLOCK

Cover design: C. Wallace Copyright © 2013 by Brant Cooper and Patrick

Vlaskovits. All rights reserved.

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Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Cooper, Brant.

The lean entrepreneur : how visionaries create products, innovate with new

ventures, and disrupt markets / Brant Cooper, Patrick Vlaskovits. — 1

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-29534-2 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-33408-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-

118-33523-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-33186-6 (ebk) 1. Entrepreneurship. 2.

Success in business. I. Vlaskovits, Patrick. II. Title.

HB615.C6495 2013

658.4’21—dc23

2012035450

For Riva and Eliza

—BC

For Kati, Shane, and the twinkle in my eye

—PV

Special Thanks Without our early adopters,

who believed enough in The Lean Entrepreneur

to pre-order a book when it was merely a landing

page with a silly video, we might not have

survived the process of writing and publishing

this book.

Their early feedback on content and exercises forced us to simplify, focus, and

home in on how to move the needle for them.

Thank you, Brant & Patrick

The Lean Entrepreneur Early

Adopters*:

@$H0K

@WojKwasi

Aalap Parikh

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Advanced VA

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