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Creator of the Lean Startup methodology who redefined the scientific method of entrepreneurship with the Build-Measure-Learn cycle
Eric Ries (born 1978) is an American entrepreneur, author, and speaker, and the creator of the Lean Startup methodology. He combined Toyota's lean production thinking with agile development methods to propose a startup framework centered on MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and the Build-Measure-Learn cycle, fundamentally changing how startups develop products and validate business assumptions. His 2011 book The Lean Startup became one of the world's bestselling entrepreneurship methodology books, translated into over 30 languages and influencing millions of entrepreneurs worldwide. Ries later extended the Lean Startup methodology to innovation management in large enterprises and founded the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), attempting to promote corporate long-termism at the capital market level.
Startups are not executing a known business plan but searching for a sustainable business model. Therefore, the core activity of entrepreneurship is not execution but learning — validating assumptions about customers, markets, and products through rapid experimentation.
Source: The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, 2011 (Crown Business)
A minimum viable product is not the worst possible product but the version that allows the maximum amount of validated learning with the least effort. Through MVP, entrepreneurs can quickly test whether the most critical assumptions hold before investing significant resources.
Source: The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, 2011 (Crown Business)
When experimental results indicate the current direction is not viable, pivoting — retaining validated learning while changing strategy — is the right choice. The ability to quickly identify pivot signals and decisively execute is one of the core capabilities of excellent entrepreneurs.
Source: The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, 2011 (Crown Business)
The biggest problem with traditional entrepreneurship is spending enormous time and money building complete products without validating market demand, only to discover nobody wants them. Lean Startup eliminates this most fundamental waste through early validation.
Source: The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, 2011 (Crown Business)
Traditional financial metrics cannot measure the true progress of early-stage startups because they reflect past execution results rather than the possibility of future growth. Innovation accounting evaluates whether startups are truly progressing through actionable metrics, benchmarks, and learning milestones.
Source: The Lean Startup, Eric Ries, 2011 (Crown Business)
Transform the entrepreneurship process into a scientific experiment cycle by rapidly building minimal experiments, precisely measuring key metrics, and learning from data to make decisions.
Dropbox's Drew Houston used a 3-minute demo video as an MVP to test market demand without an actual product; overnight registrations grew from 5,000 to 75,000, validating market demand before fully developing the product.
Build the product version that can validate the most critical assumptions with minimum effort, avoiding wasting resources on unvalidated assumptions.
Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn first posted shoe photos online before building any inventory or technology system, buying from physical stores and mailing them when someone ordered, using this manual method to validate market demand for buying shoes online.
Based on validated learning data, identify when to persevere with the current direction and when to change strategy, rather than deciding based on intuition or pressure.
Instagram was originally a check-in app called Burbn with complex features and slow user growth. Founders discovered through data that users' favorite feature was photo sharing and decisively pivoted to a photo-sharing-focused app, eventually being acquired by Facebook for $1 billion.
Replace vanity metrics with actionable metrics, building a measurement system that can truly measure startup progress and give data-based foundations to innovation decisions.
Many startups use total registered users (vanity metrics) to measure progress, but this cannot reflect real user value. Lean Startup recommends using actionable metrics like retention rate, active user ratio, and revenue per user, which can truly reflect whether the product is creating value.
Ries advocates rapid iteration and rapid learning, but he also founded the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), dedicated to changing the short-termism culture of capital markets and promoting companies to operate for long-term value creation rather than quarterly performance.
Before proposing the Lean Startup methodology, Ries experienced multiple entrepreneurial failures, including early difficulties at IMVU. His methodology was distilled from these failures, giving his theory a real practical foundation, but also meaning that even the creator of the methodology cannot guarantee success.
The Build-Measure-Learn cycle seems simple, but in practice, determining the right hypothesis, designing an effective MVP, choosing the right metrics, and deciding whether to pivot or persevere are all full of challenges. Many teams mechanically apply the Lean Startup framework without understanding its essence, resulting in correct form but poor results.
2001-2007
Accumulating experience through multiple entrepreneurial failures, gradually forming the core insights of the Lean Startup methodology
After graduating from Yale University, Ries joined multiple Silicon Valley startups and experienced multiple failures. In 2004 he co-founded IMVU (an instant messaging virtual world), experiencing typical startup difficulties in the early days: spending enormous time building a product, discovering users didn't like it, and having to relearn. These experiences prompted him to systematically think about entrepreneurship methodology.
2008-2013
Systematizing IMVU's practical experience into the Lean Startup methodology and disseminating it to entrepreneurs worldwide through blogs, speeches, and books
In 2008, Ries began systematically articulating the Lean Startup concept on his blog, quickly resonating in the entrepreneurial community. The Lean Startup was published in 2011, becoming one of the world's bestselling startup books. Ries began speaking worldwide, and the Lean Startup methodology was widely adopted by startups in Silicon Valley, Europe, and Asia.
2014-present
Extending the Lean Startup methodology to large enterprises and founding LTSE to drive long-termism reform in capital markets
Ries published The Startup Way, a sequel to The Lean Startup, applying the Lean Startup methodology to innovation management at large enterprises like GE. During the same period, he founded LTSE (Long-Term Stock Exchange) to provide a listing platform for companies committed to long-term value creation, which received official SEC approval to operate in 2020.
Context: Ries graduated from Yale University with a computer science degree during the dot-com bust and joined several early-stage startups
Decision: Chose to join startups rather than large tech companies
Reasoning: Ries was more passionate about the speed and mission of startups, despite the dot-com bubble having just burst
Outcome: Accumulated early startup experience while also experiencing multiple failures
Lesson: Failure is the best opportunity for learning; the key is to systematically distill reusable lessons from failures
Context: Ries co-founded IMVU with Will Harvey and others, a platform combining 3D avatars with instant messaging
Decision: Decided to build a standalone instant messaging platform rather than a plugin
Reasoning: The team believed a standalone platform had greater market potential, but this assumption was later proven wrong
Outcome: IMVU grew slowly in the early days, forcing Ries to rethink product development approaches, ultimately forming the core insights of the Lean Startup methodology
Lesson: Spending enormous time building a product without validating assumptions is the most common and most expensive mistake in entrepreneurship
Context: Ries applied lean production and agile development principles at IMVU, finding product-market fit through rapid experimentation and iteration
Decision: Abandoned the original large-scale launch plan, shifting to continuous small-scale iteration and testing
Reasoning: Data showed users responded far better to certain features than others; rapid iteration could amplify what worked and reduce what didn't
Outcome: IMVU achieved significant user growth, and Ries systematized these practical experiences, beginning to form the Lean Startup methodology
Lesson: Data-driven rapid iteration is better at finding true product-market fit than large-scale perfect planning
Context: Ries began systematically sharing Lean Startup concepts on the Startup Lessons Learned blog, quickly resonating widely in the Silicon Valley startup community
Decision: Publicly shared IMVU's practical experience rather than keeping it as a competitive advantage
Reasoning: Ries believed that sharing knowledge could build greater influence, and that entrepreneurship methodology itself is more valuable than any single company's practices
Outcome: The blog quickly accumulated a large readership, and Ries became an important voice in entrepreneurship methodology, laying the foundation for subsequent book publication
Lesson: Openly sharing knowledge often builds longer-term competitive advantage than keeping secrets; the influence of knowledge disseminators far exceeds that of knowledge holders
Context: The Lean Startup was officially published, systematically articulating core concepts including the Build-Measure-Learn cycle, MVP, and pivot, quickly becoming required reading for entrepreneurs worldwide
Decision: Presented the Lean Startup methodology as a systematic framework rather than case stories
Reasoning: Ries believed that only a systematic framework could be widely replicated and applied; pure case stories are difficult to guide practice
Outcome: The Lean Startup became a New York Times bestseller, translated into over 30 languages, influencing millions of entrepreneurs worldwide, and Lean Startup became one of the world's most mainstream entrepreneurship methodologies
Lesson: Systematizing practical experience into a replicable framework is the most efficient way to disseminate knowledge
Context: Ries partnered with General Electric to help the industrial giant apply the Lean Startup methodology to internal innovation projects, pioneering the enterprise application of Lean Startup
Decision: Extended Lean Startup from startups to innovation management in large enterprises
Reasoning: Ries believed that the innovation dilemma faced by large enterprises is essentially the same as startups, and the Lean Startup methodology could help them regain innovation capability
Outcome: GE's FastWorks project became a landmark case of enterprise Lean Startup, driving Ries's subsequent creation of The Startup Way
Lesson: Good methodology should be able to cross organizational scale boundaries; bringing startup thinking into large enterprises is the next important innovation frontier
Context: Ries published The Startup Way, systematically articulating how to apply the Lean Startup methodology to innovation management in large enterprises, using GE and Toyota as case studies
Decision: Focused on innovation challenges in large enterprises rather than continuing to target startups
Reasoning: Ries believed that the innovation failures of large enterprises are one of the important reasons for global economic growth stagnation, and helping large companies regain innovation capability has greater social value
Outcome: The Startup Way further expanded the reach of Lean Startup, extending it from the startup community to the management practices of large enterprises worldwide
Lesson: The vitality of methodology lies in its adaptability; frameworks that can cross contexts and scales have true lasting value
Context: The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) founded by Ries received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, becoming the fourth national securities exchange in the United States
Decision: Founded a securities exchange specifically serving long-termist companies, driving corporate behavior change at the capital market level
Reasoning: Ries believed that short-termism in capital markets is the fundamental institutional barrier preventing companies from truly innovating and creating long-term value
Outcome: LTSE became the world's first securities exchange focused on long-termism, requiring listed companies to commit to long-term strategies and stakeholder considerations
Lesson: True systemic change requires working at the institutional level; changing the rules of the game is more impactful than optimizing within existing rules
Context: Ries founded the annual Lean Startup Conference, bringing together entrepreneurs, business leaders, and innovation managers worldwide to share Lean Startup practical experiences
Decision: Built an offline community and knowledge exchange platform, transforming Lean Startup from a book concept into a practice community
Reasoning: Ries believed that methodology dissemination requires the support of a practice community; books and blogs alone cannot provide sufficient practical guidance
Outcome: The Lean Startup Conference became one of the world's most important entrepreneurship methodology exchange platforms, further driving the global dissemination of Lean Startup
Lesson: Building a knowledge community can greatly accelerate the dissemination and iteration of methodology; mutual learning among practitioners is an important driver of theoretical evolution
Ries's core work, systematically articulating the Build-Measure-Learn cycle, MVP, and pivot as core Lean Startup concepts — one of the most important works in modern entrepreneurship methodology
Ries's sequel extending the Lean Startup methodology to innovation management in large enterprises, based on practical cases from companies like GE
Ries explicitly cited Steve Blank's Four Steps to the Epiphany as an important intellectual source of Lean Startup in The Lean Startup; Blank's Customer Development methodology had a decisive influence on Ries's thinking
Ries explicitly cited the lean thinking of the Toyota Production System as the methodological foundation in The Lean Startup; lean principles of eliminating waste and continuous improvement directly inspired the core framework of Lean Startup
Steve Blank's Customer Development methodology is an important theoretical source of Lean Startup; Ries was a student in Blank's UC Berkeley course
The lean thinking of Taiichi Ohno, founder of the Toyota Production System (TPS), is the most important intellectual source of Lean Startup; Ries brought lean principles of eliminating waste and continuous improvement into entrepreneurship
Ash Maurya developed Lean Canvas on the foundation of Lean Startup, combining the Business Model Canvas with Lean Startup methodology
Creator of Customer Development methodology, co-building the theoretical foundation of modern entrepreneurship methodology with Ries
Eric Ries has created a methodology that has transformed the way startups are built and how innovation happens in large companies.
The Lean Startup is a methodology that has changed the way I think about building companies. It's one of the most important business books of the decade.
