Reddit mentions of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup

I strongly recommend Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet. It's become the de facto textbook on entrepreneurship at MIT, I think for good reason.

It breaks the process of validating a business down to 24 specific steps which each have concrete deliverables. Some steps require you to go back to previous ones if your prior assumptions turn out to be incorrect. The book itself is a quick read, but the legwork it asks you to do can seem a little daunting. I think that makes sense, though, because successfully starting a business is hard and this become is trying to take the guesswork out of it. If you follow the steps, then before you even build product, you will have validated:

• That customers really want what you've got.
  
• That they've got the money to pay for it.
  
• That your cost of acquiring a customer works out with your customer lifetime value to produce a financially sustainable business.
  
• That you know your ideal user/customer well enough to understand their motivations and whether you're appealing correctly to their needs.
  
• That you know where to find more of "your customer".
  
• That you're starting in the optimal industry for your idea.
  
• And more...
  
  All in all, it's a great way to double check your business idea and make sure it's airtight before throwing serious time or capital at it.

Just to build on this:

I couldn't make up my mind either, so I searched for these on the Amazon US site since I don't use Goodreads to see how reviews looked, etc. The resulting links, with the smile. prefix for charity aspect in case you make a purchase, are below. YMMV.


The Other F Word: 3.4

Business Development for Dummies: 3.5

Startup Mixology: 4.27

Starting a Tech Business: 2.67

The 4 Lenses of Innovation: 3.62

StartupLand: 4.01

All in Startup: 4.18

The Customer Funded Business: 3.73

Trend Driven Innovation: 4.38

Monetizing Innovation: 4.20

The Ways to New: 3.84

Startup Checklist: 4.10

The Art of Startup Fundraising: 4.11

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 4.26

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Not in the original list:

The Art of Opportunity: How to Build Growth and Ventures Through Strategic Innovation and Visual Thinking