Eric Ries

Eric Ries (born September 22, 1978) is an American entrepreneur, blogger, and author of '' The Lean Startup'', a book on the lean startup movement. He is also the author of ''The Startup Way'', a book on modern entrepreneurial management.

Early life

While at Yale, he was co-founder of Catalyst Recruiting, an online forum for university students to network with potential employers.Venture Capital: Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup"
''YouTube''. November 21, 2009.Loizos, Connie
“Lean Startup” evangelist Eric Ries is just getting started
''Reuters''. May 26, 2011. He took a leave of absence to pursue Catalyst Recruiting, but the company soon folded.

Career

IMVU

After graduating, Ries moved to Silicon Valley in 2001 as a software engineer with There, Inc. He worked with the firm until the 2003 launch of its web-based 3D Virtual World product, There.com. The company soon failed.

In 2004, Ries left to join one of the founders of There.com, Will Harvey in co-founding IMVU Inc.,Creating the Lean Startup
''Inc. Magazine''. October 2011. a social network.Lohr, Steve
The Rise of the Fleet-Footed Start-Up
''The New York Times''. April 24, 2010. IMVU investor Steve Blank insisted that IMVU executives audit Blank's class on entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley.Greenwald, Ted
Upstart Eric Ries Has the Stage and the Crowd Is Going Wild
''Wired''. May 18, 2012. There Ries picked up Blank's method of fast customer feedback, which Blank called "customer development", and applied it at IMVU in combination with lean software development, testing alternate versions of the product and measuring download rates. IMVU deployed code to production nearly 50 times a day, an unusually rapid development cycle.Roush, Wade
Eric Ries, the Face of the Lean Startup Movement, on How a Once-Insane Idea Went Mainstream
''Xconomy''. July 6, 2011. Ries also copyedited an early version of Blank's book on customer development, ''The Four Steps to the Epiphany''.

IMVU aimed to integrate instant messaging with the high revenue per customer of traditional video games. Ries and Harvey did not seek a large amount of initial funding and released a minimum viable productPenenberg, Adam
Eric Ries Is A Lean Startup Machine
''Fast Company''. September 8, 2011. within six months. In 2006, the firm raised $1 million in its first round of venture fundraising from the Seraph Group, eventually raising an additional 18 million.Marshall, Matt
The youth beat goes on -- Phonebites and IMVU score funding
''VentureBeat''. February 28, 2006. In 2008 after a new CEO joined IMVU, Ries stepped down as CTO, remaining as a board observer.Eric Ries
''Business Week''.Tam, Pui-Wing
Philosophy Helps Start-Ups Move Faster
''The Wall Street Journal''. May 20, 2010.Bernhard, Jr., Kent
The Biggest Idea of 2011: Think Lean
''Portfolio.com''. December 30, 2011.

Lean startup

After leaving IMVU, Ries joined venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins as a venture advisor, and six months later started advising startups independently. Based on his experiences, he developed a methodology based on select management principles to help startups succeed. The lean startup methodology originates from a combination of ideas such as lean manufacturing, which seeks to increase value-creating practices and eliminate wasteful practices,Solon, Olivia
Interview: Eric Ries, Author Of The Lean Startup
''Wired''. January 17, 2012.Bury, Erin
How Eric Ries Changed the Framework for Startup Success
. ''Sprouter''. December 7, 2011. and Steve Blank's customer development methodology.

In 2008, Ries began to document the lean startup methodology on his blog with a post titled "The lean startup".

He was invited to speak at the Web 2.0 Expo by Tim O'Reilly, and was offered a position as entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School. Ries began to devote all of his time to the lean startup movement, and held conferences, gave talks, wrote blog entries, and served as an advisor to companies.

In 2015, he released ''The Leader's Guide'', a self-published version of the curriculum used in his consulting work, exclusively through Kickstarter, raising $588,903 for its publication.Brustein, Joshua
The Follow-Up to The Lean Startup Is Available Only on Kickstarter
''Bloomberg''. April 6, 2015.Ries, Eric
Thank you!
''Kickstarter''. April 16, 2015. In October 2017, he released a follow-up book, ''The Startup Way'', which shows the application of entrepreneurial principles in larger corporate environments. Sales of ''The Startup Way'' were not as strong as Ries' preceding book ''The Lean Startup''.

Long-Term Stock Exchange

In 2015, Ries began organizing The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE), which is building a new U.S. stock exchange that aims to align the interests of companies and long-term investors and improve the public company experience. Ries had proposed the idea of the LTSE in his book ''The Lean Startup''. On November 30, 2018, LTSE filed an application to the Securities and Exchange Commission for registration as a national securities exchange. On May 10, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the Long-Term Stock Exchange as a national securities exchange.

Selected publications

* Ries, Eric. ''The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses''. Currency, 2011.
* Ries, Eric. ''The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth''. Currency, 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ries, Eric
Living people
1978 births
Place of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American businesspeople
Yale University alumni
American business writers
American venture capitalists