I missed this article on lean startups in the The New York Times a couple of weeks ago but a client was good enough to pass it along.  Here’s a excerpt:

ERIC RIES and Steven Blank think they have a better way to build a start-up, one that takes less time and money to try new ideas and find paying customers. They are leading proponents of the “lean start-up” — a fresh approach to creating companies that has attracted much attention in the last year or so among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, technologists and investors.

….

The term “lean start-up” was coined by Mr. Ries, 31, an engineer, entrepreneur and blogger. His inspiration, he says, was the lean manufacturing process, fine-tuned in Japanese factories decades ago and focused on eliminating any work or investment that doesn’t produce value for customers.

But my favorite quote is this one: “A start-up is a temporary organization designed to discover a profitable, scalable business model.”  I highly recommend reading the whole article here.

–Matt