Don’t let the title deceive you, this book isn’t lean by any means, but choc-full of pragmatic information on how to adjust your analytical strategy to follow only the information that is relevant to your business. For me,  Lean Analytics by Alistair Croll, Benjamin Yoskovitz, opened me up to a whole new way of thinking, and how to align business focus by removing a lot of the analytical noise that does nothing for you.

Whether you’re a startup founder trying to disrupt an industry or an intrapreneur trying to provoke change from within, your biggest challenge is creating a product people actually want. Lean Analytics steers you in the right direction.

This book shows you how to validate your initial idea, find the right customers, decide what to build, how to monetize your business, and how to spread the word. Packed with more than thirty case studies and insights from over a hundred business experts, Lean Analytics provides you with hard-won, real-world information no entrepreneur can afford to go without.

The book kicks off with the first part arguing the merits of data and why it is essential for your business to succeed, going through some basic qualitative and quantitative data, correlation, vanity metrics and adjusting so that you are not too data-driven (yes there is such a thing), lessons on the fundamentals of analysis.

The book then progresses to the second part, after the fundamentals of analytics have been explained, hones in on specific business models and focusing on the metrics that are relevant for your business. The first chapter deals with the Analytics Framework, by going through some established ones before creating your own customised augmented framework.

Then the author goes through a series of metric models, allowing you to affine yourself with one that’s the most applicable. And this is also precedented by what stage your business is at, so measuring everything at once isn’t practical. The author then guides the reader to work out which stage of the cycle their business is in, to work out what metric is most important.

CRM Software analyst Ashley Verrill discusses “Lean Analytics” with author and veteran entrepreneur Alistair Croll

The final series of chapters is the most practical of the lot, after knowing where your business lies and the framework to use, the metrics and model to apply, the author gathers some stats from various startups to allow you to correlate how you fare compared against those businesses. Or as the authors put it, a line is drawn in the sand, to allow you to benchmark yourself with confidence.

This book has been extremely useful for me, and even more for those of you looking at a startup and with your limited time and budget, finding the information that is applicable to you. The chapters are well versed and organised, succinct and pragmatic, and thus worthy of my upmost praise. This book isn’t for everyone, but if you are in the right segment, this book will prove invaluable.

Concise: 4
Level: 2.5
Prior Knowledge: None but this book is aimed for entrepreneurs at startups who are looking for the best ways of measurement

My rating: 4.5

Author: Alistair Croll, Benjamin Yoskovitz 
Title: 
Publisher: O’Reilly Media
Year: March 2013