LEAN 1-2-3 is a newsletter about early-stage entrepreneurship. Created by Ash Maurya

Battle-tested recipes for early-stage founders:

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"The Continuous Innovation Framework reflects where the Lean Startup movement is now, rather than where it was a decade ago."

~ Eric Ries

Author of The Lean Startup

DEC 7
Separate principles from tactics.
NOV 30
Existing Alternatives: The most important Lean Canvas building block
NOV 23
Bootstrapping or Venture Capital is a false choice
NOV 16
How to Find Product/Market Fit - 3 Rings Framework
NOV 9
How to Evaluate an Idea Whose Time Has Come
NOV 2
There are only four startup games.
OCT 25
Don’t Price Your Product Like An Artist.
OCT 19
The Early Adopter Paradox.
OCT 12
Make Happy Customers.
OCT 5
Fire the business plan, not business planning.
SEP 28
You’re one insight away from your next hockey stick inflection.
SEP 21
Hire to build a traction flywheel.
SEP 14
Think different, not better.
SEP 7
10X your odds of success with shorter and better feedback loops.
AUG 31
The one measure of progress to rule them all.
AUG 24
Don’t ask customers about their problems. Do this instead.
AUG 17
How to balance the conflicting pulls of time.
AUG 10
Prefer Fermi estimates when uncertainty is high.
AUG 3
Avoid the curse of specialization.
JUL 27
Love the problem, not your solution.
JUL 20
Talking to customers is the fastest way to learn.
JUL 13
Position your product as emotionally better.
JUL 6
Build something worth naming before obsessing over the perfect name.
JUN 29
You don’t need permission to start.
JUN 22
Remove failing from your vocabulary.
JUN 15
Don’t rush outside the building.
JUN 8
New problems come from old solutions.
JUN 1
Don’t start with a public launch.
MAY 25
BOOTSTART your way to early traction (and beyond).
MAY 18
Achieve escape velocity with a single growth rocket.
MAY 11
Validate value delivery before growth.
MAY 4
Start with Founder/Model Fit.
APR 27
As a founder, you are Investor #1 in your startup.
APR 20
Problem/Solution Fit (not Product/Market Fit) is the first significant milestone of a startup.
APR 13
Making happy customers is the universal job of every business
APR 6
Learn qualitatively, verify quantitatively
MAR 30
Problems can’t be validated, only discovered.
MAR 23
Earning attention is the first battle.
MAR 16
Pricing is one of the most underutilized levers for growth.
MAR 9
Say no to stealth
MAR 2
Start charging on Day One
FEB 24
Sell before you build
FEB 17
Don't lower signup friction; raise it