The Lean Startup
The Lean Startup by Eric Riesby Eric Ries
Hacker ApprovedTied for most recommended of 24 business books
Recommended as a foundational guide to fast, validated product building that shaped many founders' thinking; the most common caveat is that some tactics and examples are now dated.
Recommended as a foundational guide to fast, validated product building that shaped many founders' thinking; the most common caveat is that some tactics and examples are now dated.
38 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 32
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 84%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 10 years
Median of the 5 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 32 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Re-read and recommended to others
“It was a big influence on me and something I recommend and quote often.”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” “Your book The Lean Startup helped me so much. I read it tens of times.”
Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” “I've read the Lean Startup several times, and I'm a huge fan.”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” - Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible”
- Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible”
Shaped how readers think about startups
“The Lean Startup had a huge influence on how I think about startups and product work”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” “it has shaped the way I think about building products”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” “it helped shape my couple of startups that I did”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” - Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible”
- Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible”
Pushed readers to build their own companies
“The book had a big part in pushing me towards doing my own lean startup just a year later”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” “Your first book was my like my bible, used many of the concepts when building gomacro.ai”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” “it helped shape my couple of startups that I did”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” Guides AI product and agent work
“Your first book was my like my bible, used many of the concepts when building gomacro.ai”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” “The methodology and philosophy guide my agentic workflow construction.”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Useful only in narrow contexts
“the generalized ideas and statements are of very little value without a keen sense of applicability in context”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “We Have Learned Nothing” “basically a suboptimal strategy that produces acceptable outcomes only in the most fruitful circumstances”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “We Have Learned Nothing” “likely applicable only within a very narrow niche”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “We Have Learned Nothing” Poor fit for frontier AI companies
“The lean startup methodology is fundamentally antithetical to companies like OpenAI”
Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible” “short term validation -- is a poor proxy for the core risks in frontier companies”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “AMA: I'm Eric Ries (The Lean Startup) & Author of New Bestseller Incorruptible”
Other business books people recommend
The four most recommended other business books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Lean Startupby Eric RiesThis page | 32 | 6 | 84% | 5 | 10 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| The Gervais Principleby Venkatesh Rao | 32 | 6 | 84% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Incorruptibleby Eric RIES | 23 | 11 | 68% | 4 | — | Approved |
| The Goalby Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox and Ensemble cast and Dwight Jon Zimmerman | 21 | 3 | 88% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Never Split the Differenceby Chris Voss and Tahl Raz | 13 | 2 | 87% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
37 of the 41 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I have enjoyed ... The Lean Startup”
“short term validation -- is a poor proxy for the core risks in frontier companies”
“The methodology and philosophy guide my agentic workflow construction.”
“how he would reduce experiences into patterns, and then define them”
“One thing that bothers me a lot in this day and age is the culture of reiterating and 'ship fast'.”
“Your book The Lean Startup helped me so much. I read it tens of times.”
“who have reported that they have found the framework useful in their own lives and companies”
“Lean Startup was invaluable to me starting my career in 2017”
“it helped shape my couple of startups that I did”
“it still held and helped me shape my views”
“It was a big influence on me and something I recommend and quote often.”
“I did encourage our clients to actually read The Lean Startup to understand the full context of the MVP concept”
“Going to buy your books to read up first. Thanks again for the AMA and all your thoughtful responses for the HN crowd”
“I tried to address this in The Lean Startup and also in the follow-up book The Startup Way.”
“it has shaped the way I think about building products”
“I've read the Lean Startup several times, and I'm a huge fan.”
“The lean startup methodology is fundamentally antithetical to companies like OpenAI”
“still think about it about once a week”
“the 'lean startup' & the work you & Steve Blank did was revolutionary in terms of getting products to market quicker”
“you were not able to demonstrate any correlation with your suggested methods with startup success”
“I enjoyed The Lean Startup.”
“I really felt the power of the ideas you've shared there coming from a heavily technical background”
“it was very influential to me”
“the stuff I'm writing about has held up pretty well through many, many cycles of boom and bust”
“I learned a lot and am glad I took the chance”
“Your first book was my like my bible, used many of the concepts when building gomacro.ai”
“The Lean Startup had a huge influence on how I think about startups and product work”
“I loved The Lean Startup! One of my favorite books.”
“it was a bible to me at the time”
“many of the tactics and examples in the book are now a bit dated”
“The book had a big part in pushing me towards doing my own lean startup just a year later”
“the generalized ideas and statements are of very little value without a keen sense of applicability in context”
“frameworks that exist in this realm all sound reasonable”
“basically a suboptimal strategy that produces acceptable outcomes only in the most fruitful circumstances”
“likely applicable only within a very narrow niche”
“The darker patterns are where you break down the big picture rationale for the company.”
“Those 2 resources address everything you need to know and then some, with concrete advice.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.