What to read after reading the ‘Lean Startup’

I sometimes get asked for recommendations on what to read after the Lean Startup. Here are a few resources I found useful:

• The 4 Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank – or watch Steve Blank’s class on Udacity which covers some of those topics. Eric Ries followed Steve Blank’s class at Stanford and Lean Startup was inspired by some of Steve’s work. It introduces the notion of Customer Development. Put simply, it’s the exact opposite of what Jean de La Fontaine said when he said: “Never sell the bear’s skin before one has killed the beast”.
  Customer development is the exact opposite: Here you sell the skin first. This book is about how to find customers before you even start building a product.

• Running Lean by Ash Maurya is a very practical how-to guide that will tell you, step by step, how to validate / invalidate your business hypotheses. It introduces the Lean Canvas, explaining how to use it with loads of examples – or get started with your own lean canvas and here is a great manual on how to do just that.

• Lean Analytics – by Alistair Croll and Ben Yoskovitz focuses on the metrics and what to track at what stage, depending on your business model. I would recommend following their enlightening talk / class on Udemy. Very smart guys.

• How to conduct customer interviews sounds simple, but it’s actually very hard. This is a list of 20+ resources on how to find customers to interview and how to interview them and Customer Interview Templates and Resources from The Lean Startup Circle Wiki. Always useful.

But the best thing to do, once you have read the Lean Startup, is to find a project of yours, and apply everything you have read / learned. This is really the best way to anchor the knowledge. Putting it into practice. And when you do, please let me know, I would love to know what else you have learned.