The Four Steps to the Epiphany

the Four Steps to the Epiphany Igniting the Lean Startup Movement

WHEN I WROTE The Four Steps to the Epiphany over a decade ago, I had no idea I would be starting the Lean Startup revolution. I was struggling to reconcile the reality of my 21 years of experience as an entrepreneur with then-common advice about how to start a company.

Fast-forward 10 years: My observation that startups are not smaller versions of large companies, that they search for a scalable business model (while existing companies execute a known business model), is a mainstream concept.

Startups of all stripes are using the Customer Development process I laid out in this book and detailed in The Startup Owner's Manual in 2012.

These new ideas have coalesced into what has today become the Lean Startup movement. The core ideas of The Four Steps have spread from startups to large corporations and the Lean Startup methodology has become the standard for commercializing scientific research in the U.S. It's taught in most major universities and in thousands of entrepreneurial programs around the world.

In 2013, the Harvard Business Review cover story on Lean declared it essential not just for startups but for the survival of large corporations. And it all started with this one book. Who would've thought? —Steve