Book Summaries

Fail Fast or Win Big is not about failing. It’s about embracing a specific way of thinking about creating and launching a company.

In Running Lean, author and serial product developer Ash Maurya delivers a “systematic process” that promises to determine “product/market fit for your fledgling venture” so that your business project is set up for success from the first step.

Innovation strategy and growth expert Clayton M. Christensen, and his co-authors Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David Duncan, present a new conceptual framework for products and innovation based on their conclusion that customers don't "buy" products or services; they “hire” them to do a job.

Joe Pulizzi, founder of several startups, reverse-engineers the traditional entrepreneurial model for success by shifting focus from first creating a product to getting customers first and then developing products.

Bestselling author Peter Sims explores the value of taking small, experimental steps in developing breakthrough innovation. These little bets help determine direction while providing critical information from lots of little failures and from small significant wins. Sims shares examples of successful breakthrough innovators at work and the dramatic results of their efforts.

The need for entrepreneurs will only grow. The step-by-step approach in Disciplined Entrepreneurship will allow intrepid entrepreneurs to quickly and efficiently iterate their way toward the best solutions. Whether you are a first-time or repeat entrepreneur, Bill Aulet offers the tools you need to improve your odds of making a product people want – and need – to buy.

In Best Practices Are Stupid, Stephen M. Shapiro offers 40 counterintuitive yet proven strategies for boosting innovation and making it a repeatable, sustainable and profitable process at the heart of a company's culture. Shapiro shows that nonstop innovation is attainable and vital to building a high-performing team, improving the bottom line, and staying ahead of the competition.

The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities. This book introduces the idea of design thinking‚ the collaborative process by which the designer's sensibilities and methods are employed to match people's needs with what is technically feasible...

Kevin Maney shows how conflicting forces determine the success, or failure, of new products and services in the marketplace. Almost every decision consumers make involves a trade-off between fidelity and convenience — between the products we love and the products we need.