The Real Startup Book
2nd edition · Updated for the AI era
You can build almost anything now. That’s the problem. A free, open-source field guide to figuring out what’s worth building first — 60+ field-tested methods, each with an AI prompt to do the heavy lifting.
-
If you want a book that can always be by your side whenever you need to validate a new business idea, look no further — just open it, and you’ll know exactly what to do next. Built by practitioners, for practitioners, this book distills a decade of hands-on experience validating business ideas, now updated for the AI era.
Dan TomaDan Toma, award winning author Innovation Accounting & The Corporate Startup
-
In a world where AI makes it easier than ever to build, the real challenge is knowing what’s worth building in the first place. The Real Startup Book is an indispensable guide for entrepreneurs who want to stop guessing, start learning, and create products people truly want.
Nir EyalBestselling author of Hooked, Indistractable, and Beyond Belief
Welcome!
You’re reading the free online edition of The Real Startup Book — an open-source field guide to startup research and experimentation, edited by Tristan Kromer and sponsored by Kromatic.
When a working prototype is one AI prompt away, the expensive mistake is no longer building badly — it’s spending a month building the wrong thing.
The Real Startup Book is how you figure out what’s worth building first: 60+ field-tested methods — customer interviews, smoke tests, fake doors, disposable MVPs — organized by what you’re trying to learn, not by what’s trendy. Each comes with the steps, the traps that sink it, and an AI prompt to do the heavy lifting.
The technology got faster. The judgment still has to be yours.
