It’s our last day!
over 9 years ago – Wed, Apr 29, 2015 at 10:48:15 PM

Yesterday, we hit our final stretch goal of $500,000 (amazing!) so we will produce an audio version of The Leader’s Guide. Thank you all again for your incredible support.

We have 13 hours to go. Many rewards have sold out, but there are some experiential ones left that are worth considering so be sure to check them out. 

Our last corporate sponsor is— Intuit! 

When Intuit founder Scott Cook first approached me about his interest in the Lean Startup, he wasn't a stranger to the ideas at the core of the methodology. Cook, after all, started Intuit’s “Follow me Home” policy nearly three decades before I ever wrote a word about Lean Startup. Intuit became the first enterprise to attempt to instill the Lean Startup methodology throughout the organization, and under the leadership of Scott and CEO Brad Smith, Intuit has put rapid experimentation and iteration at the center of its innovation process. 

I’m delighted that they are supporting the campaign. It’s a relationship that is very meaningful to me and I’m grateful for their ongoing support.

And most of all thank YOU!

Thanks again to everyone who has made the campaign such a success. I hope you’re as excited about The Leader’s Guide as I am, and I can’t wait to get it into your hands.

Eric

Our final stretch goal: an abridged audiobook version of The Leader’s Guide
over 9 years ago – Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 11:04:41 PM

We’ve gotten a lot of requests throughout the campaign, but perhaps the most popular one has been for an audiobook version of The Leader’s Guide. It wasn’t my original intention to create an audiobook, and it will take some adapting to make it work, but so many of you have asked for it that I’ve reconsidered my strategy.

And so, as my last stretch goal: If the campaign reaches $500,000 in funding, every backer at the $21 reward level and above will also receive an abridged audio edition of The Leader’s Guide.

I already consider the campaign a great success, but I would love to hit this final milestone before Wednesday’s funding deadline.

We need your help to make that happen. This is our most ambitious stretch goal, and there’s no guarantee that we’ll reach it, so if you’re excited about the project and think it could benefit others, I need your help spreading the word.

I also wanted to address some feedback we’ve received about the high volume of updates we’ve been sending. This was deliberate: my goal was always to be transparent about the campaign process, to share what we’ve learned along the way, and to offer tons of bonus rewards and content. Since a lot of backers gave us feedback about how much they enjoyed the extra content and rewards, we decided to err on the side of giving too much information, especially since so many of our updates were about cool free stuff we were excited to share with you!

People who know me will be familiar with this approach, but I realize that it might have been a little overwhelming for those who don’t. In any event, thanks for sticking with us and offering lots of helpful feedback along the way.

Eric

Check out some of our early book cover drafts — and let us know what you think!
over 9 years ago – Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 08:18:53 AM

As you know, The Leader’s Guide is still very much a work in progress. I still have interviews to conduct, research to gather, and writing to do. But early on, my team and I decided that including a mock-up of a book cover—even if it wouldn’t end up being the final cover—would help make our value proposition clear.

Yes, the campaign is about more than just a book: by backing, you’re also becoming part of my research process and a growing community of Lean Startup practitioners — but we wanted to make it clear that there was still a cool product at the heart of it: a physical book with a gorgeous design.

We love the design that Hamish Smyth of Pentagram came up with, and we wanted to share some of his earlier iterations with you, as well. 

Have a favorite? Want to share other ideas? Let us know what you think!

Eric

Upgrade Monday, a sneak peak at The Leader's Guide, and more
over 9 years ago – Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 12:03:12 PM

Thanks, everyone, for your ongoing support and enthusiasm. We've got only three days left in the campaign and we're using what we've learned from you to offer a few last surprises before the campaign ends.

This update might be early for backers on the east and west coasts, but we wanted to post an update that included upgrades and limited edition rewards at a time when more of our international backers would be online.

Upgrade Monday

Our first Alex Osterwalder upgrade was such a hit that we're thrilled to announce we're adding a new one.

The first 50 people to upgrade to a higher-level reward will receive a signed copy of Alex's book Value Proposition Design.

Please note you need to upgrade your pledge to a higher-level reward — this is a great chance to check out some of our new rewards like The Super Dev Pack.

(We will notify the first 50 upgraders and post a comment here within this update once we've received the first 50.)

Thanks to Alex and his publisher Wiley for their incredibly generous support!

Sneak peaks at The Leader's Guide

I get pretty excited about offering rewards and bonuses to early adopters so naturally a lot of our updates have centered around them. But I think it's important to get back to the book at the heart of the campaign, and so I spent the last week putting together some very early short excerpts of The Leader's Guide.

Check out these excerpts on my blog (where I'll be posting more this week, including one later today) and on Medium — and please let me know what you think. 

A 90-minute AMA today

A lot of you enjoyed last week's AMA's and I've got another today with Hacker News at 11:45AM PST. I'll be Tweeting the full URL tomorrow but it will also be accessible here.

(Please note that anyone who wants to ask a question will need to create a HN account.)

New rewards

We've heard your feedback that you'd like more chances to spend time with me, so we've added some new rewards including lunches in New York; San Diego; and São Paulo, Brazil; and a Skype session with me.

We've also included a reward for those of you in large organizations who want to convince your bosses to try this Lean Startup thing: a conversation with me hosted by Bloomberg about the impact the methodology is having in established companies.

Thanks again!

Eric