I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of the Lean Entrepreneur* and have been reading it on my commute for the past few weeks. After having spent time reading many other Lean books and blog posts, I’m excited to see this book released. In the interest of keeping a review MVP, here’s why you should, and shouldn’t read this book:

Reasons to Read the Lean Entrepreneur:

1. You’re not fully convinced to use Lean.

This book is like an FAQ on Lean. It beats down all the stereotypes (like Lean is only for software) with specific examples and thoughtful explanation.

2. You want to hear real life case studies of Lean in action.

The authors went to great lengths to get great case studies from everything from hardware companies to commercial cleaning products to prove that you can apply lean to *any type of business*.

3. You want help evaluating how you’re really doing at being Lean. 

One of the best things about this book is that between the concepts and case studies are a ton of checklists that help you see if you’re really properly evaluating your company at each step of the lean process.

Reasons to Not Read the Lean Entrepreneur:

1. You are already a 100% lean practitioner.

I’ve been doing lean basically full time for 3.5 years now and I still learned a lot. You’re bound to learn a few new things.

2. You like detailed, helpful diagrams and pictures.

Sorry, I know we’re all supposed to love @FakeGrimlock, but I’m underwhelmed by his drawings. I don’t think his drawings added much to the book or were helpful other than to give the book a lighter, more accessible feel.

3. You were hoping for the nitty-gritty details of exactly what to do.

This book won’t help you write your customer development interview script (here’s a post for that) nor help you find the phone numbers of your customers. What it will do is answer the critics’s questions and get you asking the right questions about your business.

—

Overall, I thought this was a solid book that adds a lot to the conversation of the evolving Lean Startup movement. I read a lot of books and this falls in at a 7.5 on my rating scale.

It goes much further and deeper into how to approach actually doing Lean in your business than Eric Ries’s The Lean Startup book. I hope that some of the people at companies with case studies in the book will share some more tactical advice that didn’t fit in this book.

The Lean Entrepreneur came out today. You can dive into Lean best practices and get your copy here.

*Disclosure: Patrick Vlaskovits is a friend of mine and he asked me to review his book.