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FROM THE SHARED SHELF · 2006–2026 SAMPLE

The Startup Owner's Manual

Steve Blank, Bob Dorf

7 readers recommend it across 5 discussions

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THE WORD OF MOUTH

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Original Hacker News comments, in the readers’ own words.

bobdorf
as Steve Blank's co-author, I must comment that building a startup is NOT gambling...his and my work and book are often discussed as "applying the scientific metnod to starups..." have a hypothesis, develop a test to prove or disprove it, run the test, read the results, iterate and test again...It is a serious, demanding process that has generated many millions in value for thousands of startups around the world. There is no other process so detailed and granular in its step-by-step process. And luck is at best a trivial influence on startup success...lean methods conceived by steve and in our book are a a far better alternative to the startup casino...
muzani
The Startup Owner's Manual. It's a classic, but for some reason not too popular. As the subtitle says, there are literally step-by-step instructions on how to build a great company. It's a little dry. It's a 600 page book. And checklists can be intimidating. I didn't even read the whole thing, but it shows how the process is more like R&D than gambling, and removes any doubt. I feel like a lot of modern startup "advice" was pulled from this book and mutated beyond recognition, becoming more like cargo cult.