The Real Startup Book Update
Last time I wrote about The Real Startup Book I was asking for lean startup interns…
The response was overwhelming. 38 people expressed interest in helping and most of them weren’t interns…they were real practitioners like Sean K Murphy, an OG of lean startup, and Luke Szyrmer, who is writing a whole book on landing pages. They all wanted to either share their experience or just learn something new.
So in the interests of the project, we’re opening it up under Creative Commons. This means that anyone will be able to use, remix, and rehash what we come up with under the terms of that license. If you’re not familiar with Creative Commons, it basically means the book will be like open source software: free to use for the benefit of the community.
It will also be written by the community. Everyone who contributes will be listed as an author.
Lean Publishing?
To try and keep the project true to the spirit and purpose, we’ll be as lean as possible during the production of the book. e.g.
- Concierge tests – Kromatic LLC has been using it for over a year now
- Comprehension & smoke tests – Austin Eford & Josephine Wong are making sure that everyone can understand the value proposition and building a landing page to test it: The Real Startup Book
- Other Smoke tests – We’ve been testing this via blog posts leading to a download form:
- Usability tests – Casey Sakima has been doing usability tests to understand if people are good at writing hypotheses and how we can improve their abilities
- Usability / Readability tests – We have a number of reviewers like Phyo Pine from around the world who are giving feedback on the language and making sure non-native English speakers find it accessible.
New Release Every Two Weeks
We are going to attempt to release a new version of the Real Startup Book once every two weeks.
It may be that it’s impossible given the time constraints of everyone involved. But that’s the goal. We just need to iron out our build & deploy system!
An Open Project Plan
We’re keeping the project plan publicly available in Trello: The Real Startup Book Project Plan
It’s a bit messy so in true lean fashion we’re adjusting the process itself as we go. If you’d like to be invited to the board to contribute, just email me or one of the other contributors.
The board is open to comments and I’ll keep it open so long as that doesn’t get distracting. I’ll also start a channel on the Lean Startup Circle Slack for conversation purposes which you can ask to join.
The Real Startup Book
Why the name? Why does it keep changing?
Good questions…we’re iterating on everything, including the name of the book. It may change again but it’s getting a bit more solidified. If you want to read about the origins of the name, you can read the preface here.
Getting Feedback
What we most need right now is feedback from you.
We’re asking for feedback at every stage of the process. Comments and corrections are critical to getting this project right!
Our staging server is google drive and you can access The Real Startup Book draft. Just ask and we’ll give you commenting access.
You can also download the pdf version here and send us feedback. You can tweet @RealStartupBook as well. Anything works.
What should we change?
Is there anything we should be doing that we’re not? Some test we should be running better?
Probably…please let us know in the comments below.
May I contribute to the book?
I can add own experiences as a startupper in services and experiences with my customers, including tools such as PAIN-storming, BML loops, OGSM for Startups, Metrics and the Operational Definition, Team dynamics in relation to People’s Values and Personalities, etc…
FYI, I am working currently on a Dutch book on, a.o., Lean.
Happy to participate in the next months …
Kind regards, Marcus
Thank you Marcus! We love all contributions. I’ll email you directly to coordinate.
What is a good testable Hypothesis? How do I create it? Where do I get a nice inspiration on the variety of tests I can run? I am working on a digital health application I want to test asap with my customers. Real-life, real feedback, real learning!
Hi Marco,
A good hypothesis is one that is falsifiable. Meaning, you must be able to prove it is INCORRECT. If not, it’s not a good hypothesis.
You can find a list of dozens of different experiment and research types in the Real Startup Book. The latest version is online and you can find the link to download in this post.
Thanks for your feedback.
I would like to get some real-world hypothesis that were used. This helps my learning and I can understand what falsifiable really means.
Hi Marco,
Here are some examples: http://www.softschools.com/examples/science/hypothesis_examples/104/
But you are welcome to write your own and email them to me and I’ll give you some quick feedback. Alternatively, here are my office hours: http://calendly.com/trikro/officehours