The Lean Startup - Review

The Lean Startup is a book proposing that the way businesses have traditionally started is wasteful, time-consuming, and relies on a lucky turn of the dice more often than not. Eric Ries presents a new way to think about business and a new way to start them in this book. Eric defines a startup as "an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty". In today's world, that applies to all businesses both old and new. 

The key to the Lean Startup method is to use the Build-Measure-Learn cycle and to tighten the feedback loop as much as possible. The author start with 5 principles that the entire book is built on:

1. Entrepreneurs are everywhere.

2. Entrepreneurship is management. Your business is a business . . . not just a product.

3. Validated learning. A startup's most vital function. (39)

4. Build-Measure-Learn

5. Innovation accounting, or how to measure your progress.

This book has a lot of great examples and provides real methods to improve your business and your creativity while protecting the bottom line. The information that the author gives on testing products before launch, when to launch, and how to launch is easily worth ten times the cost of the book by itself. Testing is something that quite a few business books are pushing these days, but this is the first I have read that gives real world ways to do it other than using Google AdWords.

It would be easy to assume that a book written by an internet entrepreneur might not have much to say about other businesses, but you would be wrong. The fact is, every business is an internet business these days in some way. Whether it is actually run online, uses a website, or you test your business with some of these methods, you will learn how to create lean start-ups for any type of business. In fact, one of the examples that Eric uses is an on the ground laundry service based in India! You can't get much more low-tech than that, and they followed principles of a lean start-up.

The information in this book is valuable, accessible, and most importantly actionable. Buy it, use it - you will greatly increase your chances of creating a business that people are actually interested in. Highly Recommended.


Also: this book is just as valuable for authors as businesses. If you are writing a book that you expect to sell, the principles of testing and examining the market can be applied to writing a book. Would be especially helpful in narrowing down how you want to frame your book.

George Orwell's Six Questions & Rules For Writers

George Orwell, renowned author of 1984 & Animal Farm, penned an insightful essay in 1946 entitled "Politics & The English Language". He skillfully parodies meaningless words and confusing phrases, pushing for writers to simplify. He translates a verse from Ecclesiastes from good english to modern english to demonstrate:

"I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Here it is in modern English:

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."

It is easy to strip writing of its power with complicated prose, and authors can benefit from asking themselves six questions that Orwell asked of his own writing.

1. What am I trying to say?


2. What words will express it?


3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?


4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?


5. Could I put it more shortly?


6. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? 


Asking these questions are a great start to making your writing simple and easy to read. One great tip that I first learned from Capon is to always edit your writing out loud. This will help insure that you are writing good english rather than modern english.

BONUS TIPS FROM ORWELL

In the same essay, Orwell gives 6 rules for writers that will also help you while writing.


" . . . One needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These rules sound elementary, and so they are, but they demand a deep change of attitude in anyone who has grown used to writing in the style now fashionable. One could keep all of them and still write bad English . . ."

Follow Orwell's advice and ask yourself these six questions while sticking to these six rules, and your writing is guaranteed to improve. My favorite rule of Orwell's is the fourth, never use the passive where you can use the active. If authors would follow this rule alone, almost every piece of prose would improve dramatically.

Ignore Everybody - Review

I have had this book on my wishlist for a long time, and I finally found a copy at a bookstore. I was expecting a practical book on creativity, but that's not exactly what this is. It's a lot closer to The War of Art then to Thinkertoys. 

If you are looking for a quick read that has some great advice for both businesses and individuals, this would be a good choice. It's not as good as The War of Art, but it is also more down to earth. The author's personal transformation into a famous business card size cartoonist provides anecdotes for almost every one of the 40 keys to creativity. The cartoons interspersed throughout the book range from great to "eh" to offensive.

Two of my favorite quotes:

"Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the "creative bug" is just a wee voice telling you, "I'd like my crayons back, please."

"Everyone has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb. You may never reach the summit' for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness."

Bottom line: Recommended if you are stuck in a creative rut or need to be convinced that you have some creative gifts to offer. Warning: the cartoons will offend you, so skip them.