Steve Blank's Lean LaunchPad Course is Live | Hacker News Reader

Steve Blank's Lean LaunchPad Course is Live

blog.udacity.com

54 pointsivoflipse16 comments

Open articleView on HN

This blogpost is painful :

1) no link to the course,

2) no link to the Udacity homepage,

3) no mention of the price or if it's free.

1) http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/ep245/CourseRev/1

2) http://www.udacity.com/

3) The course is free

I had to look these all up myself so agree that it's a poor blogpost.

It's been live since last weekend, the announcement seemed to be late. It's very good so far (I've watched the first week's lectures). Steve is even better as a speaker/teacher than as a writer.

Have you had experience with his book? I'm looking to see if I should consider picking that up or The Lean Startup.

The Startup Owner's manual is a very thorough book. It's meant to be used. Much more practical than Lean Startup in my opinion, though a tougher read.

The Lean Startup is a good high level overview of the underlying concept. I found it a bit overly focussed on launching "lean startups" within big companies. This may have been to boost consulting. Whatever the reason, it made the book less relevant to my experience.

But the Lean Startup is a quick, easy read, and you will get some actionable knowledge out of it if you're not already familiar with the ideas.

If you already know the concept, but want to put it into practice, go with Steve Blank's book.

I agreed with graeme that Steve Blank's book is a reference book that requires getting out of the building to validate ideas. I'm taking the lectures right now.

I have bought the book and am reading along. I haven't really read enough to form an opinion.

One minor irritant so far - there are readings from two other books, which I'll probably buy, but not expect we're needed. The Lean Startup is one of them.

If you're not familiar with the concept at all, "The Lean Startup" isn't bad. Otherwise, it's fairly fluffy in terms of content, and you'd be better off with something like:

Nail Then Scale It: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055D7O1U/?tag=dedasys-20

I've heard good things about this too: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006UKFFE0/?tag=dedasys-20 - if anyone wants to comment on how it compares to "Nail It".

I've also got Steve Blank's book, but haven't read much of it yet. I'm signed up for the course though, and agree that he seems like a good speaker, although I haven't had much time for it yet.

Nail It Scale it is definitely worth it. Very readable and cogent.

I agree, it's the other one, Running Lean I was curious about. I haven't bought it because after Lean Startup, Nail It, and Blank's book, I'm not really sure another one covering the same ground is worth it.

I'd read both Nail it then scale it and Running lean. They are both readable and to the point. They have slightly different approaches that both have been very valuable to me.

sounds interesting , so which approach you think it better and why ?

yes, but Steve sent email only 10 hours ago ;) enjoy it

Wondering whether this is better or to go whole hog on 30x500. 30x500 seems to be much more likely to result in something - even though it costs 2500$.

The big benefit of 30x500 that I've seen is the peer-group through the very active mailinglist.

Also a lot of good marketing/copywriting advice and feedback that you'd otherwise not get.

Whether you'd like to spend the money is another question of course.

Rob Walling & company have a startup course thing too: http://www.micropreneur.com/

I like his writing on startups a lot, but I haven't paid for it or tried the course... nor do I think I would spend money for something like that. I'd rather participate in communities like this one that are free and open.

I think I'd go for Steve Blank's course first, before shelling out that much money for something.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com