Three Books for Learning to Build an Early Stage Startup Business

Greetings from Innovation ACT, where Canberra's tertiary students are learning business principles for start-ups. Mr David Elliot, Managing Director of Agile Digital Engineering Pty Ltd, recommended three books:

1. The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Brant Coope and Patrick Vlaskovits, 2010.

   Entrepreneurs need to think of customer segments and the features which will appeal to each, tested through customer validation. The scientific method can be used to test the idea.
   (#CustDev)

2. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, by Eric Ries, 2011.

   Ries advocates applying the lean manufacturing method and Kanban to startups. Also advocated is the Minimum Viable Product.

3. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers, by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, 2010.

   This book advocates writing out all the business assumptions, on a business model canvas.

I have to admit being skeptical about the use of techniques developed in the hard sciences and engineering to business.