Eric Ries wrote what is probably the most popular book ever on starting a business called The Lean Startup (2011). It is therefore worth mentioning when he publishes any new book on startups. I pre-ordered and received my copy of The Startup Way (2017) yesterday.

According to Eric, this book is 5 years in the making. He argues that many of the same lean startup principles (plus some new ones) apply at the enterprise level, to non profits and to government agencies that want to remain innovative and relevant.

I have not yet read beyond the first chapter of the book but what is particularly interesting to me is the issue of whether companies have to manage things differently at different stages of growth to keep on growing or whether similar management principles apply. In my last blog Scale and Complexity I suggested that different principles might apply to manage complexity as a company scales (based on the work by Verne Harnish); however, Eric appears to be making the provocative claim that many of the same lean management principles apply at all scales and for very different types of organizations (i.e., for profit, non profit, government). Eric argues for a unified theory of entrepreneurship that potentially applies at all stages of company growth if the company wants to keep growing. Obviously management of a company earning > 50 million is different in some respects from management in a company earning < 1 million, but what each company might have to do in order to manage ongoing growth and innovation might be similar in many respects. This is one of the issues that interests me and what I will be attending to as I continue reading this book.

For now, however, I just wanted to draw your attention to this book because it looks like it will be another very popular addition to the startup literature. The book launch appears to have been scheduled to coincide with the launch of Eric's new startup The Long-Term Stock Exchange that will be interesting to follow as well.