Notes on Four Steps to the Epiphany. Not only that, but the successful path is nearly completely different from traditional 'Product Development' processes and methodologies; Steve Blank calls this. The traditional product development model has four stages: concept/seed, product development, beta test, and launch.

See the “ ” Tab for Tools and Blogs. For Books on Silicon Valley History see Free Harvard Business Review article Entrepreneurial Management Stack Over the last few years we’ve discovered that startups are not smaller versions of large companies. The skills founders need are not covered by traditional books for MBA’s and large company managers. There are now a few books that specifically address founders needs. Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Generation is the first book that allows you to answer “What’s your business model?” intelligently and with precision.

Make sure this one is on your shelf. Osterwalders follow-on book Value Proposition Design describes how to get product/market fit right.

It’s another “must have” for your bookshelf. Eric Ries was the best student I ever had.

He took the Customer Development process, combined it with Agile Engineering, and actually did the first implementation in a startup. His insights about the combined Customer Development/Agile process and its implications past startups into large corporations is a sea change in thinking. His book, The Lean Startup is a “must have” for your shelf. Ben Horowitz’s The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a series essays about what CEO face in the “Build” phase – the transition from searching for a business model into a company. It’s impossible to implement any of this if you don’t understand Agile Development. Scarface movie music. Extreme Programming Explained by one of the pioneers of Agile, Kent Beck, is a great tutorial.

If you don’t understand Values, Principles and Practices in XP it makes Customer Development almost impossible. If you’re in a large company, T he Other Side of Innovation makes sense of how to actually insert innovation into an execution organization. If you’re starting a medical device company Biodesign:The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies is a must have. It has a great customer discovery process.

Talking to Humans is a great simple primer on Customer Discovery. • and: by Alexander Osterwalder •: by Eric Ries • by Ben Horowitz • by Kent Beck • – Vijay Govindarajan & Chris Trimble • – by Giff Constable & Frank Rimalovski • The Process of Innovating Medical Technologies by Zenios, Makower, Yock, et al (great website ) •: And my newest book, – The Checklist Companion to the Startup Owners Manual Must Read Books The subtitle of Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital is the “dynamics of bubbles and golden ages”. A must read to understand the long 50-year innovation cycle we’re in. The other side of innovation is the closest recipe I’ve read for getting entrepreneurship right in large companies. Innovator’s Dilemma and Innovator’s Solution helped me refine the notion of the Four types of Startup Markets. I read these books as the handbook for startups trying to disrupt an established company. The Innovators DNA rings true about the skills founders need to have.

Crossing the Chasm made me understand that there are repeatable patterns in early stage companies. It started my search for the repeatable set of patterns that preceded the chasm. The Tipping Point has made me realize that marketing communications strategies for companies in New Markets often follow the Tipping Point. Blue Ocean Strategy is a great way to look at what I’ve called “market type.” • – Carlota Perez • – Vijay Govindarajan & Chris Trimble • & The by Clayton M. Christensen • – Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, Clayton M. Christensen •: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers •: Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley’s Cutting Edge •: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution — all three by Geoffrey A.

Moore •: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell •: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by R. Mauborgne and W. Kim Strategy Books for Startups The Marketing Playbook gives marketers five strategy options, teaches you gap analysis and offer tactical marketing campaign advice. Do More Faster identifies issues that first-time entrepreneurs encounter and offer useful advice. Getting Real is web-focussed. Wasserman’s Founders Dilemma is essential reading to building a great startup team. These books are classics but timeless.

The Entrepreneurial Mindset articulates the critically important idea that there are different types of startup opportunities. The notion of three Market Types springs from here and Christensen’s work. The book provides a framework for the early marketing/sales strategies essential in a startup.