From the Desk of Eric Ries, March 2018

From the Desk of Eric Ries

March 2018

One of the most inspiring things about the work I do is meeting people and hearing about their amazing ideas and projects. I recently returned from a trip to Stockholm and Oslo, where I spoke at the Nordic Business Forum. I talked about Lean Startup for corporations and also had a couple of really invigorating conversations about entrepreneurship, lean, and innovation in general. No matter where in the world I am, the energy and creativity astound me, and this trip was no exception. The company was amazing, both on stage and in the audiences.Nordic Business Forum has posted very cool sketch notes of all the presentations. Here's one of mine from Stockholm and one from Oslo.In relaunching my newsletter, I want to share with you some of the most interesting, challenging, inspiring and thoughtful pieces that I've read. Some of them will be about my own work, but many will just be things that struck me and that I hope might strike a chord with you, too. Almost every day I'm sent or come across a post or piece about how people are thinking about work and directing their efforts towards coming up with new ways to help people and delight customers. It's pretty awesome. I'm the student as much as the subject.Here are a few great conversations I've had about my own work recently, and some reads that have stayed with me.I hope you find them interesting and by all means, if there are things you think I should be reading feel free to tag me on Twitter.

Conversations

• How to Build an Entrepreneurial Culture: 5 Tips from Eric Ries (full video here)

• Founder 182: Eric Ries on Pioneering the Lean Startup Movement and How to Grow Any Company to Scale (podcast included)

• How to Launch A New Product

  Readings

• Five Questions with Great At Work Author Morten Hansen

Don't you want to work smarter, better, and with more satisfaction? Morten Hansen, who also literally wrote the book on collaboration (Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results), has great advice and has practical tips on how to follow it, too.

• A Sense of Purpose

Long-term thinking is something I've been thinking about since I wrote The Lean Startup, where I proposed a crazy idea that's now come true--the Long-Term Stock Exchange. Blackrock CEO Larry Fink's annual letter to CEOs on why long-term strategies and investing are the right way forward is incredibly powerful.

• How to Hit Your First Million in Sales

This piece by Dan San, Director of Sales at Meural is full of wisdom and advice about how to build a company and culture that can grow as sales grow. Meural hit the million dollar sales mark in under two years and continues to grow rapidly, so it's definitely a model worth looking at (plus--a brief cameo by The Lean Startup!).

• A Startup Mentality Gives Public Research A Lift

I love stories that show how Lean Startup isn't just for companies. This one is about how it's doing amazing things at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

Lean Startup Summit Europe is March 20 and 21 in Amsterdam: 10 keynotes, 38 roundtable sessions, 5 interactive workshops, 3 panels, 3 corporate cases, 5 rounds of unconference, and so much more!