Mark interviews Eric Ries, author of the New York Times Bestseller The Lean Startup. This episode is all about building businesses in the most efficient and effective way possible. This includes having a "business hypothesis," knowing when to go after the money, and how to "Fail Fast" while continuing to build a better product.

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Timecodes:

00:00 Welcome, our guest is Eric Ries, founder of the Lean Startup Movement.
00:45 Intro to Eric
01:17 Background, before the Lean Startup
01:53 Yale during the Dot Com Bubble
3:35 The real entrepreneurs come out during a down economy
4:15 Eric's startup history
6:30 Why did it take so long to ship?
8:17 How did you decide to go with either shrinkwrap or web only product?
9:14 What was the root cause of the failure of your first company?
11:00 Mark on over-hyping PR
11:50 Startup problems!
13:43 Why would you talk to journalist? Why waste energy?
14:20 People go too fast to internationalize
14:45 Eric: The vital function of a startup is to learn how to build a sustainable business
15:40 Discussion of Awe.sm
17:30 Can you make startups science?
19:30 A teachable moment for entrepreneurs: HAVE A HYPOTHESIS! What do you do better, different, or what do you want to achieve?
20:42 Looking for the "Up and to the Right" charts
21:20 Starting points for business should be a problem
22:10 Eric: Innovation Accounting
22:53 Eric's book: The Lean Startup
24:00 Big money vs. Little money
25:40 The fundamental goal should be to eliminate waste
26:44 Too much capital is not good
26:54 Mark on the negatives of the "Fail Fast" movement
27:45 Eric: The thing that is supposed to fail fast is your bad ideas, not your company
31:10 Mozy Pro Ad
34:00 Imvu
35:29 Why people use social media. Will these norms change?
36:30 Eric: Social media is great for people with social capital
38:00 Should you use avatars?
40:05 What happened after Imvu
41:00 Transitioning from software to writing
42:20 Did agile development influence you?
43:20 The inception of Lean Startup
44:45 Telling an entrepreneur to focus is like telling a fat person to lose weight
46:18 iOS Vs. Android
46:50 Engines of Growth
48:30 Vanity metrics
49:00 Startups are all naked in the mirror
51:10 Astrology and causality in startups
52:00 Actionable metrics
53:35 Opposition to departmental silos
54:20 Semi-autonomous teams
57: 00 How do you rectify company mission and customer demand
58:00 Apple is iterative
1:01:01 Why Steve Jobs got fired
1:01:45 Fenwick and West AD
1:03:03 So what comes next?
1:03:35 Eric: what is society going to do? Most people are working on failing ideas.
1:05:35 Middle class job of the next generation: software development!
1:06:05 The skills gap
1:07:15 The "College Deal" and why it needs to change
1:09:50 We need education!