Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach adopted globally, changing how companies are built, and new products are launched.

The authors define a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under extreme uncertainty. This is as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, and several counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs-in companies of all sizes-a way to continuously test their vision, adapt, and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in an age when companies need to innovate more than ever.