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+# The Lean Startup — Practices Catalog
+
+Complete chapter-by-chapter catalog of practices from *The Lean Startup*
+by Eric Ries.
+
+---
+
+## Part One: VISION
+
+### Chapter 1: Start
+
+#### Entrepreneurship Is Management
+- Startups require management — but a different kind than established companies
+- Traditional management (forecasting, milestones, detailed plans) fails under extreme uncertainty
+- The Lean Startup methodology provides a disciplined approach to entrepreneurship
+- Success is not about the right idea; it's about the right process for discovering what works
+
+#### The Five Principles
+1. **Entrepreneurs are everywhere** — Not just garage startups; anyone creating under extreme uncertainty
+2. **Entrepreneurship is management** — A startup is an institution that needs to be managed
+3. **Validated learning** — Startups learn what works through scientific experimentation
+4. **Build-Measure-Learn** — The fundamental feedback loop of turning ideas into products
+5. **Innovation accounting** — Boring stuff matters: measuring progress, setting milestones, prioritizing work
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 2: Define
+
+#### What Is a Startup?
+- **Definition** — A human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty
+- **Three components**: Institution (people, organization), Product (broadly defined, including the experience), Extreme uncertainty (the key differentiator)
+- Startups exist within large companies too — intrapreneurs face the same challenges
+
+#### The Snaptax Story
+- Intuit's internal startup team used lean principles within a large enterprise
+- Small team, rapid iteration, validated learning with real customers
+- Demonstrates that lean startup works inside established organizations
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 3: Learn
+
+#### Validated Learning
+- **Core concept** — Learning that is backed by empirical data from real customer experiments
+- **Not just "we learned a lot"** — Must demonstrate concrete evidence of validated, actionable insights
+- **Value vs. waste** — Any effort not directed toward learning what customers want is waste
+- **The IMVU story** — Built IM add-on, launched quickly, learned customers wanted standalone product; every feature they thought was essential turned out to be wrong
+
+#### How to Validate
+- Run experiments with real customers, not focus groups or surveys alone
+- Measure actual behavior, not stated preferences
+- Use the scientific method: hypothesis → experiment → measurement → learning
+- Validated learning is more reliable than market research or theoretical planning
+
+#### Auditing Learning
+- Ask: "What did we learn?" after every effort
+- If you can't point to specific validated learnings, you may be producing waste
+- Learning milestones replace traditional milestones in a startup context
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 4: Experiment
+
+#### Strategy as Experiment
+- Every strategic plan contains assumptions — treat them as hypotheses to test
+- Don't just plan; experiment
+- The Zappos example: tested demand for online shoes by posting shoe photos and buying from retail stores when orders came in — zero inventory risk
+
+#### Designing Experiments
+- **Clear hypothesis** — "We believe [customer segment] will [take action] because [reason]"
+- **Measurable outcome** — Define success/failure criteria upfront
+- **Minimum effort** — Design the smallest experiment that tests the hypothesis
+- **Real customer interaction** — Test with actual customers, not internal stakeholders
+
+#### Government and NGO Applications
+- Lean Startup principles apply beyond commercial startups
+- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau used lean principles for government services
+- Any situation with uncertainty benefits from validated learning
+
+---
+
+## Part Two: STEER
+
+### Chapter 5: Leap
+
+#### Leap-of-Faith Assumptions
+- **Every business plan has assumptions** — The most important are the ones that, if wrong, doom the venture
+- **Value hypothesis** — Does the product deliver value to customers? Will they use/pay for it?
+- **Growth hypothesis** — How will new customers discover the product? Will growth be sustainable?
+- **Analog and antilog** — Look at analogous successes (analogs) and failures (antilogs) to ground assumptions
+
+#### Genchi Gembutsu (Go and See)
+- Toyota principle: go see the problem firsthand
+- Talk to customers directly; don't rely on reports and surveys alone
+- Customer archetype development through direct observation
+- Understand customer needs at a deep level before building solutions
+
+#### Strategy and Assumptions
+- Strategy is built on assumptions — make them explicit
+- Test assumptions in order of riskiness — most dangerous first
+- Don't waste time building features based on untested assumptions
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 6: Test
+
+#### The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
+- **Definition** — The version of a product that allows a full turn of the Build-Measure-Learn loop with minimum effort
+- **Purpose** — To test fundamental business hypotheses, not to build a small product
+- **It will feel incomplete** — If your first product doesn't embarrass you, you launched too late
+
+#### Types of MVPs
+- **Video MVP** — Dropbox created a demo video explaining the product; measured signup interest before building
+- **Concierge MVP** — Manually deliver the service to a handful of customers; learn before automating
+- **Wizard of Oz MVP** — Looks automated to customers, but humans are doing the work behind the scenes
+- **Landing page MVP** — Single page describing the product; measure signups or clicks to gauge interest
+- **Smoke test** — Sell the product before building it; measure actual purchase intent
+
+#### Quality and MVP
+- **Remove any feature/process/effort that doesn't contribute to the learning you seek**
+- Quality in MVP context means: quality of learning, not quality of product
+- Customers may complain about MVP quality — that's data, not failure
+- Professional customers and early adopters have different quality expectations
+- Early adopters want solutions to problems; they'll tolerate imperfections
+
+#### MVP Fears
+- **Competitors will steal the idea** — Speed of iteration matters more than secrecy; if competitors can out-execute on your idea that easily, you have bigger problems
+- **Brand damage** — Launch MVP under a different brand if needed; early adopters don't define your brand
+- **Discouragement from negative results** — Negative results are learning; the only failure is not learning
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 7: Measure
+
+#### Innovation Accounting
+- **Three steps**: (1) Establish baseline with MVP, (2) Tune the engine toward the ideal, (3) Pivot or persevere
+- **Baseline** — MVP establishes where the company actually stands on key metrics
+- **Tuning** — Each iteration attempts to improve metrics from baseline toward business plan goals
+- **Decision** — If tuning isn't working, it's time to pivot
+
+#### Actionable vs. Vanity Metrics
+- **Vanity metrics** — Total signups, total revenue, page views — look good but don't inform decisions
+- **Actionable metrics** — Cohort analysis, per-customer metrics, conversion rates — drive specific actions
+- **Three A's of good metrics**: Actionable (shows cause and effect), Accessible (everyone understands), Auditable (can verify the data)
+
+#### Cohort Analysis
+- Group customers by when they joined (cohort), not cumulative totals
+- Compare cohorts to see if product changes actually improve metrics
+- Example: Are customers acquired this month retaining better than last month's?
+
+#### Split Testing (A/B Testing)
+- Test product changes with controlled experiments
+- Show different versions to different customer groups simultaneously
+- Measure the actual impact of each change on customer behavior
+- Avoid "launch and hope" — test and learn instead
+
+#### Kanban with Validation
+- Modified kanban: features progress through stages including "validated"
+- A feature isn't done until it's been tested with customers and learning is captured
+- Limits work-in-progress to maintain focus on learning
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 8: Pivot (or Persevere)
+
+#### The Pivot Decision
+- **Structured decision** — Not panic, not ego; data-driven through innovation accounting
+- **Runway = number of pivots remaining** — Not just cash in the bank; time and pivots left
+- **Regular pivot meetings** — Schedule them (e.g., monthly); don't wait for crisis
+- **Telltale signs you need to pivot**: Experiments yield diminishing results, product development feels unproductive, feeling that the engine isn't working
+
+#### Catalog of Pivots
+- **Zoom-in pivot** — A single feature becomes the whole product
+- **Zoom-out pivot** — The whole product becomes a feature of something larger
+- **Customer segment pivot** — Same product, different target customer
+- **Customer need pivot** — Same customer, different problem to solve
+- **Platform pivot** — Change from application to platform (or vice versa)
+- **Business architecture pivot** — Switch between high margin/low volume and low margin/high volume
+- **Value capture pivot** — Change how you monetize (subscription, ads, transaction fee, etc.)
+- **Engine of growth pivot** — Switch between viral, sticky, or paid growth
+- **Channel pivot** — Change distribution channel (direct, retail, online, etc.)
+- **Technology pivot** — Achieve the same solution using different technology
+
+#### Pivot Success Stories
+- Wealthfront pivoted from game-based stock picking to automated investment management
+- Votizen pivoted through four models before finding what worked
+- Each pivot preserved what was learned while changing what wasn't working
+
+---
+
+## Part Three: ACCELERATE
+
+### Chapter 9: Batch
+
+#### Small Batches
+- **Single-piece flow** — Complete each item fully before starting the next; counterintuitive but faster
+- **The envelope-stuffing example** — Folding all letters, then stuffing all envelopes is slower than doing each letter end-to-end
+- **Why small batches win**: Find quality problems sooner, reduce work-in-progress, enable faster learning loops
+
+#### Continuous Deployment
+- **Ship every change immediately** — Don't batch up releases
+- **IMVU example** — Deployed 50+ times per day; immune system of automated tests
+- **Andon cord** — Stop the production line when a defect is found; fix it immediately
+- **Benefits**: Faster feedback, smaller blast radius for bugs, continuous learning
+
+#### Pull, Don't Push
+- **Pull system** — Only build what's needed by the next step in the process
+- **Just-in-time production** — Applied to software: only build features when validated learning demands them
+- **Avoid inventory** — Unvalidated features are inventory; they have carrying costs
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 10: Grow
+
+#### Engines of Growth
+- **Sticky engine** — Retain existing customers; growth = new customers > churned customers
+  - Key metric: customer retention rate / churn rate
+  - Strategy: improve product to increase retention
+  - Example: subscription businesses, SaaS
+- **Viral engine** — Existing customers bring new customers as a side effect of usage
+  - Key metric: viral coefficient (must be >1 for viral growth)
+  - Strategy: make sharing/inviting natural to product usage
+  - Example: social networks, communication tools (Hotmail signature, PayPal referrals)
+- **Paid engine** — Spend money to acquire customers; growth = LTV > CAC
+  - Key metric: customer lifetime value (LTV) minus cost of acquisition (CAC)
+  - Strategy: increase LTV or decrease CAC
+  - Example: advertising-driven businesses, enterprise sales
+
+#### Choosing Your Engine
+- **Focus on one engine at a time** — Rare to succeed at multiple simultaneously
+- **Product/market fit** — When you find an engine that works, you'll know — metrics will spike
+- **Sustainable growth** — New customers come from the actions of past customers (not one-time campaigns)
+
+#### When Engines Run Out
+- Every engine eventually exhausts its fuel (addressable market, viral networks, profitable channels)
+- Companies need to manage growth engine transitions
+- This is where established company innovation (Ch 12) becomes critical
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 11: Adapt
+
+#### Five Whys
+- **Root cause analysis** — Ask "why?" five times to get to the root of a problem
+- **Proportional investment** — Invest proportionally to the severity; small problems get small fixes
+- **How to apply**: Problem → Why? → Why? → Why? → Why? → Why? → Root cause → Proportional fix
+- **Common pattern**: Technical problems often have human/process root causes
+- **Avoid Five Blames** — Focus on systems and processes, not people
+
+#### Building an Adaptive Organization
+- **Speed regulators** — Five Whys acts as a natural speed regulator; problems slow you down until fixed
+- **Training and process** — Invest in training when Five Whys reveals skill gaps
+- **Tolerance for failure** — Build a culture that accepts mistakes as learning opportunities
+- **Simplicity** — Start simple: pick one Five Whys area, run a session, implement the smallest fix
+
+#### Getting Started with Five Whys
+- Requires executive buy-in and a facilitator
+- Start with a specific, narrow problem domain
+- Be tolerant of first-time mistakes; the process improves with practice
+- Ensure everyone affected by the problem is in the room
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 12: Innovate
+
+#### Innovation Sandbox
+- **Create a protected space** — Innovation teams need protection from the parent organization's processes
+- **Boundaries**: Defined customer segment, limited scope, time-boxed experiments, small team
+- **Team autonomy** — Cross-functional team with authority to build, market, and deploy within sandbox
+- **Metrics-based accountability** — Innovation accounting inside the sandbox; standard metrics outside
+
+#### Internal Startup Teams
+- **Scarce but dedicated resources** — Small team fully devoted, not shared across projects
+- **Independent development authority** — Can develop and deploy without organizational approvals
+- **Reporting structure** — Report to senior leadership, not middle management layers
+- **Personal stake** — Team members should have meaningful personal investment in the outcome
+
+#### Protecting the Parent
+- **Portfolio management** — Manage internal startups alongside core business
+- **Handoff process** — When sandbox succeeds, integrate the innovation into the main organization
+- **Culture clash** — Innovation team culture will differ from parent; manage the tension intentionally
+
+#### Shusa (Chief Engineer) Concept
+- Toyota's concept of a heavyweight project leader
+- One person responsible for the complete customer experience
+- Cuts across organizational silos to deliver integrated value
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 13: Epilogue — Waste Not
+
+#### The Biggest Waste
+- Building products nobody wants is the greatest waste in startups
+- All the efficient processes in the world don't matter if you're building the wrong thing
+- Lean Startup is about eliminating waste through validated learning
+
+#### Connection to Lean Manufacturing
+- Toyota Production System inspired the methodology
+- Just-in-time, small batches, andon cord, continuous improvement (kaizen)
+- Applied to product development: just-in-time learning, small experiment batches, stop-the-line for learning failures
+
+#### Organizational Superpowers
+- Companies that master validated learning have a structural advantage
+- Speed of learning, not speed of production, is the competitive moat
+- Every organization can adopt these practices regardless of size or industry
+
+---
+
+### Chapter 14: Join the Movement
+
+#### The Lean Startup Movement
+- Community of practice spanning industries and geographies
+- Conferences, meetups, online resources for practitioners
+- Lean Startup principles as organizational capability, not just a phase
+
+#### Long-Term Vision
+- Build organizations that can sustain innovation over decades
+- Balance between exploiting current business and exploring new opportunities
+- The goal is not one successful product but a learning organization

package/skills/lean-startup/references/review-checklist.md

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+# The Lean Startup — Strategy Review Checklist
+
+Systematic checklist for reviewing startup/product strategies against the 14 chapters
+from *The Lean Startup* by Eric Ries.
+
+---
+
+## 1. Vision & Definition (Chapters 1–2)
+
+### Startup Identity
+- [ ] **Ch 1 — Startup management** — Is the venture managed as a startup (experimentation-based) rather than with traditional planning?
+- [ ] **Ch 1 — Five principles awareness** — Are the five Lean Startup principles understood and applied?
+- [ ] **Ch 2 — Uncertainty acknowledgment** — Is extreme uncertainty recognized as the defining condition?
+- [ ] **Ch 2 — Institutional thinking** — Is the startup treated as an institution requiring management, not just a product?
+
+---
+
+## 2. Learning & Experimentation (Chapters 3–4)
+
+### Validated Learning
+- [ ] **Ch 3 — Learning measurement** — Can the team point to specific validated learnings from recent work?
+- [ ] **Ch 3 — Value vs. waste** — Is effort directed toward learning what customers want, or toward untested features?
+- [ ] **Ch 3 — Empirical evidence** — Are decisions based on customer experiment data, not opinions or surveys alone?
+- [ ] **Ch 3 — Learning milestones** — Are learning milestones used instead of (or alongside) traditional milestones?
+
+### Experiment Design
+- [ ] **Ch 4 — Hypothesis-driven** — Are initiatives framed as testable hypotheses with clear success/failure criteria?
+- [ ] **Ch 4 — Minimum experiment** — Is each experiment the smallest possible test of the core assumption?
+- [ ] **Ch 4 — Real customers** — Are experiments run with actual customers, not internal stakeholders?
+- [ ] **Ch 4 — Measurable outcomes** — Are success/failure criteria defined before the experiment runs?
+
+---
+
+## 3. Assumptions & MVP (Chapters 5–6)
+
+### Leap-of-Faith Assumptions
+- [ ] **Ch 5 — Assumptions identified** — Are the riskiest assumptions explicitly listed?
+- [ ] **Ch 5 — Value hypothesis** — Is there a clear value hypothesis (will customers use/pay for this)?
+- [ ] **Ch 5 — Growth hypothesis** — Is there a clear growth hypothesis (how will new customers discover this)?
+- [ ] **Ch 5 — Risk ordering** — Are assumptions tested in order of riskiness (most dangerous first)?
+- [ ] **Ch 5 — Customer contact** — Is the team practicing genchi gembutsu (talking to customers directly)?
+
+### MVP Design
+- [ ] **Ch 6 — MVP purpose** — Is the MVP designed to test a hypothesis, not to be a small product?
+- [ ] **Ch 6 — MVP type** — Is the right MVP type used (video, concierge, Wizard of Oz, landing page, smoke test)?
+- [ ] **Ch 6 — Minimum scope** — Does the MVP contain only what's needed for the learning goal?
+- [ ] **Ch 6 — Quality perspective** — Is MVP quality measured by learning quality, not product polish?
+- [ ] **Ch 6 — Fear management** — Are fears (competitors, brand damage, discouragement) addressed rationally?
+
+---
+
+## 4. Metrics & Accounting (Chapter 7)
+
+### Innovation Accounting
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Three-step process** — Is innovation accounting followed (baseline → tune → pivot/persevere)?
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Baseline established** — Has the MVP established a baseline for key metrics?
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Tuning measured** — Are iterations measured against the baseline to show improvement?
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Decision readiness** — Is there enough data to make a pivot/persevere decision?
+
+### Metric Quality
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Actionable metrics** — Are metrics actionable (show cause and effect), not vanity (total signups)?
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Cohort analysis** — Are customers grouped by cohort, not measured as cumulative totals?
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Split testing** — Are product changes tested with A/B tests, not "launch and hope"?
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Three A's** — Are metrics Actionable, Accessible (everyone understands), and Auditable (verifiable)?
+- [ ] **Ch 7 — Kanban with validation** — Are features tracked through a validation stage, not just "done"?
+
+---
+
+## 5. Pivot Decisions (Chapter 8)
+
+### Decision Process
+- [ ] **Ch 8 — Regular meetings** — Are pivot/persevere meetings scheduled regularly (not crisis-driven)?
+- [ ] **Ch 8 — Data-driven** — Are pivot decisions based on innovation accounting data, not gut feelings?
+- [ ] **Ch 8 — Runway awareness** — Is runway measured in pivots remaining, not just cash?
+- [ ] **Ch 8 — Warning signs** — Are telltale signs monitored (diminishing experiment results, unproductive development)?
+
+### Pivot Knowledge
+- [ ] **Ch 8 — Pivot catalog** — Does the team know the full catalog of pivot types?
+- [ ] **Ch 8 — Preserved learning** — Does each pivot preserve validated learning while changing what isn't working?
+- [ ] **Ch 8 — No stigma** — Is pivoting treated as a strategic move, not a failure?
+
+---
+
+## 6. Execution & Growth (Chapters 9–10)
+
+### Development Process
+- [ ] **Ch 9 — Small batches** — Is work shipped in small batches, not large releases?
+- [ ] **Ch 9 — Continuous deployment** — Are changes deployed frequently (daily or more)?
+- [ ] **Ch 9 — Pull system** — Are features built only when validated learning demands them?
+- [ ] **Ch 9 — Andon cord** — Is there a process to stop and fix quality issues immediately?
+
+### Growth Strategy
+- [ ] **Ch 10 — Engine identified** — Is the engine of growth identified (sticky, viral, or paid)?
+- [ ] **Ch 10 — Engine focused** — Is the team focused on one engine at a time?
+- [ ] **Ch 10 — Sustainable growth** — Does growth come from past customer actions, not one-time campaigns?
+- [ ] **Ch 10 — Product/market fit** — Are key metrics spiking, indicating product/market fit?
+- [ ] **Ch 10 — Engine monitoring** — Is the team watching for engine exhaustion and planning transitions?
+
+---
+
+## 7. Organization & Process (Chapters 11–12)
+
+### Adaptive Process
+- [ ] **Ch 11 — Five Whys** — Is Five Whys root cause analysis used for problems?
+- [ ] **Ch 11 — Proportional investment** — Are fixes proportional to problem severity?
+- [ ] **Ch 11 — No blame culture** — Does root cause analysis focus on systems, not people?
+- [ ] **Ch 11 — Continuous improvement** — Is there a culture of learning from failures?
+
+### Innovation Structure (for enterprises)
+- [ ] **Ch 12 — Innovation sandbox** — Is there a protected space for innovation with clear boundaries?
+- [ ] **Ch 12 — Dedicated team** — Is the innovation team small, cross-functional, and fully dedicated?
+- [ ] **Ch 12 — Team autonomy** — Does the team have authority to build, deploy, and iterate independently?
+- [ ] **Ch 12 — Parent protection** — Are mechanisms in place to protect the parent organization?
+- [ ] **Ch 12 — Metrics accountability** — Is the innovation team held accountable with innovation accounting?
+
+---
+
+## Quick Review Workflow
+
+1. **Vision pass** — Is the venture recognized as a startup? Is the right management approach used?
+2. **Learning pass** — Is validated learning happening? Can the team point to evidence?
+3. **Assumption pass** — Are leap-of-faith assumptions identified and tested in risk order?
+4. **MVP pass** — Is the MVP testing a hypothesis? Is it the minimum needed?
+5. **Metrics pass** — Are metrics actionable? Is innovation accounting in place?
+6. **Decision pass** — Are pivot/persevere decisions structured, regular, and data-driven?
+7. **Execution pass** — Are batches small? Is a growth engine identified and focused?
+8. **Organization pass** — Is Five Whys used? Is innovation protected in enterprise context?
+9. **Prioritize findings** — Rank by severity: wrong assumptions > wrong metrics > wrong process > nice-to-have
+
+## Severity Levels
+
+| Severity | Description | Example |
+|----------|-------------|---------|
+| **Critical** | Building on untested assumptions or wrong metrics | No value/growth hypothesis, vanity metrics as KPIs, no customer contact, building full product before testing assumptions |
+| **High** | Missing core Lean Startup practices | No innovation accounting, no MVP experiments, gut-feel pivot decisions, no cohort analysis |
+| **Medium** | Process and execution gaps | Big-batch releases, no split testing, no Five Whys, no regular pivot meetings, single growth engine not identified |
+| **Low** | Best practice improvements | No kanban validation stage, no formal experiment documentation, no innovation sandbox for enterprise, missing pivot catalog awareness |

package/skills/lean-startup/scripts/example.py

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