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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

> If that’s what you’re looking for, we recommend Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup, a must-read in our opinion.

There are better books, I think. I've just read Nail It Then Scale It, which is mostly better than Ries' book. Steve Blank's new book also comes to mind, and Running Lean also comes highly recommended from others I know. Ries' book is too generic and leaves you without much of substance once you're done with it.

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I felt The Lean Startup could've been written in one-fourth of the amount of pages Ries used. There was a lot of fluff to wade through and I kept thinking "Come on, come on! Where's the good stuff? Where are the principles and case studies?" Perhaps I took the book a bit too seriously and had high expectations going in – I took notes and was really intent on studying the book – so perhaps one would get more out of it if used for more casual reading.

You are being FAR too kind. It could be condensed to two pages.

I honestly can't understand what the fuss is. There are far better books startup books going around.

Just finished "Nail It Then Scale It" as well ... some great info and examples in there ... definitely worth a look.

I'm curious if Running Lean covers anything the other three haven't, as it's the only one I haven't read.

we still found Eric Ries' very good. I have read 4 steps to Epiphany and Steve's new book is beside my bed waiting to be read!

I guess it's ok as an introduction to the idea behind 'lean startups', but it doesn't really give you much to go on that's concrete.

I'm not so enthusiastic about The Lean Startup. It's worth reading, certainly, but it gets annoying as Ries spends a fair amount of time concentrating on "intrapreneurs" at large corporations, and insisting that divisions in large enterprises are analogous to startups.

Fine, fine. But don't call your book The Lean Startup, then. Or, if you're going to write a book with that title, write about actual startups, and get more in-depth.

The cynical view: big corporations have a lot more money to spend on, say, consultants helping them discover their inner startup than actual startups do.

That certainly makes sense, and I can't blame the author for spending time on them. I just wish it was a tad bit clearer that this was the direction the book was taking; its cover and marketing material focus on small startups.

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