What should I read before starting a company?

Foreword is written by Eric Ries, and Kupor repeatedly uses Lean Startup concepts (MVP, pivot, validated learning) as the shared vocabulary between founders and VCs when evaluating early traction

Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It→ cites →The Lean Startup

Evaluates Ries's Lean Startup methodology against the data, finding that pivots and MVPs correlate with unicorn outcomes but that many billion-dollar companies skipped the classic lean playbook entirely

Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups→ cites →The Lean Startup

Mazzucato critiques Lean Startup's emphasis on private entrepreneurship.

The Entrepreneurial State→ cites →The Lean Startup

Ries's The Lean Startup is the methodology Garcia Martinez both practices and satirizes when describing his Y Combinator startup AdGrok's pivot cycles

Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley→ cites →The Lean Startup

Recommends Ries's The Lean Startup as the companion methodology for de-risking the business before seeking venture capital, since term-sheet leverage depends on traction built via validated learning

Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist→ cites →The Lean Startup

Explicitly praises Ries's Lean Startup methodology on MVPs and validated learning, but argues that Fishkin's own failures show where lean runs out in content-driven, SEO-type businesses where audience-building precedes product

Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World→ cites →The Lean Startup

Ries's The Lean Startup is cited by Tools of Titans entrepreneur guests on iterative product development

Tools of Titans→ cites →The Lean Startup

Builds directly on Ries' Lean Startup methodology, extending validated learning to enterprise contexts

The Lean Enterprise→ cites →The Lean Startup

Blank's customer development framework directly influenced the Lean Startup; he references Ries throughout

The Startup Owner's Manual→ cites →The Lean Startup

Maurya explicitly builds on Ries' Lean Startup, adapting the build-measure-learn loop into actionable steps

Running Lean→ cites →The Lean Startup

References Ries' Lean Startup methodology and validated learning as core to modern product development

The Lean Mindset→ cites →The Lean Startup

Thiel references lean startup methodology, critiquing iterating without bold vision.

Zero to One→ cites →The Lean Startup

Doerr references Ries's Lean Startup as complementary to OKRs.

Measure What Matters→ cites →The Lean Startup

Olsen builds on Ries's Lean Startup methodology.

The Lean Product Playbook→ cites →The Lean Startup

Fitzpatrick references Ries's Lean Startup.

The Mom Test→ cites →The Lean Startup