Andrew's Reviews > The Lean Startup

There are two useful ideas wrapped up in this book:
1) build the simplest version of a prototype that will allow you to test the core hypothesis about how it may solve a particular problem: this is the "Minimum Viable Product," or MVP
2) the purpose of a company/startup/other such entity is to function as a "learning organization," where everything the organization builds is focused on generating knowledge that will inform development of products and projects—rather than focusing on just building products alone.

The rest is less important and written in your boilerplate bombastic business book style. And the company that seems to launch Ries's career, IMVU, is basically the most absurd early-00's nonsense: an IM client where you & other anonymous people around the world can pay to chat as glitzed-out avatars. So that undercuts my ability to take a lot of his ideas seriously.