Startup Owner's Manual
More than 100,000 entrepreneurs rely on this book. The National Science Foundation pays hundreds of startup teams each year to follow the process outlined in the book, and it's taught at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and more than 100 other leading universities worldwide. Why? The Startup Owner's Manual guides you, step-by-step, as you put the Customer Development process to work. This method was created by renowned Silicon Valley startup expert Steve Blank, co-creator with Eric Ries of the "Lean Startup" movement and tested and refined by him for more than a decade. This 608-page how-to guide includes over 100 charts, graphs, and diagrams, plus 77 valuable checklists that guide you as you drive your company toward profitability. It will help you: Avoid the 9 deadly sins that destroy startups' chances for success Use the Customer Development method to bring your business idea to life Incorporate the Business Model Canvas as the organizing principle for startup hypotheses Identify your customers and determine how to "get, keep and grow" customers profitably Compute how you'll drive your startup to repeatable, scalable profits. The Startup Owners Manual was originally published by K&S Ranch Publishing Inc. and is now available from Wiley. The cover, design, and content are the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product.
Stats for nerds
45recommend
97mentions
67people
2012–2026years
70% recommend29% neutral1% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Go read Steve Blank, either Four Steps to the Epiphany or The Startup Owner's Manual. Skip over any hardware examples.
TL;DR: You can’t sell a product if you don’t know who wants it or what they want or how to reach them. (And other shocking revelations)
- but not many founders read The Four Steps, The Startup Owner's Manual, The Lean Startup etc. _before_ they dive into figuring out how to take their idea forward.
Then that is the problem that needs to be solved. The information they need is out there. If they are unaware of it, or choose to ignore it, that is the problem.
we need a name for the phase that comes before building - Pre-Build in|Validation
I think we have that already. It's called Customer Discovery, and it's the first phase of the Customer Development methodology.
I don't think inventing new catch-phrases is really adding anything here, personally.
- 1. The Pragmatic Programmer.
2. Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.
3. Diffusion of Innovations.
4. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.
5. Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash.
6. Writing to Learn.
7. On Writing Well.
8. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware.
9. Thinking In Systems: A Primer.
10. The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company.
- The startup playbook. All the basics: https://playbook.samaltman.com/
The Startup Owner's Manual: https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-Step/dp/09...
Nobody seems to recommend this because nobody has finished reading it, but it's meant to be acted on, not finished. There are literally checklists. It's also hard to get a soft copy, but th soft copies are useful for printing out the checklists. Paul Graham has changed the definition of a startup, but I still love the one from here - the goal of a startup is to have a scalable and repeatable business model.
Startup=Growth, by Paul Graham https://paulgraham.com/growth.html
I'd recommend the whole site, and many do. But start here. Many don't understand that startups are about growing assets, not revenue. And exponential is a funny word for "very slow". If you wanted to grow to a million dollars, do anything but a startup and don't raise VC money. But this shows how the math works.
High Growth Handbook: https://growth.eladgil.com/
And this is what you read after you get past 10 employees. Who to hire next, how to manage. There are tons of people who talk about how to get Product Market Fit, but few who talk about how to build an engine to turn PMF to money. There's tons of podcasts but consider this book a collection of the best ones.
- It would take an entire book to answer this question thoroughly. Luckily, that book exists: it's The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank (or its successor, The Startup Owner's Manual).
- I recommend reading "The Startup Owner's Manual" by Steve Blank.
I presume your product solves a problem or serves a need that you have seen observed in a specific market segment. Those persons / organizations would be the first people you could get in touch with. Keywords that identify the need you solve might also be useful to drive SEO campaigns.
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