169 Quotes by Eric Ries

Just as scientific experimentation is informed by theory, startup experimentation is guided by the startup’s vision. The goal of every startup experiment is to discover how to build a sustainable business around that vision.

Think big. Start small. Scale fast.

I call this building an adaptive organization, one that automatically adjusts its process and performance to current conditions.

The common tendency of product development is to skip straight to the fourth question and build a solution before confirming that customers have the problem.

After more than ten years as an entrepreneur, I came to reject that line of thinking. I have learned from both my own successes and failures and those of many others that it’s the boring stuff that matters the most. Startup success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.

Anything those customers experience from their interaction with a company should be considered part of that company’s product.

The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build – the thing customers want and will pay for – as quickly as possible.

The critical first question for any lean transformation is: which activities create value and which are a form of waste? Once.

If you don’t know who your customer is, you don’t know what quality is.