This is a very readable and concrete guide to some of the latest thinking on the subject of customer development, or at least to the development of new customers for the high-tech startups and similar enterprises. (The high-tech entrepreneurs often think that the lessons they’ve learned in this sector can easily transfer to everything else. They generally can’t.) The subtitle of this book is “A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to Epiphany,” but that’s not an accurate description. From what I’ve gathered about the development of this book, it seems like it had started out in a much more modest form (perhaps as a real cheat sheet), and has evolved to the point that it actually can qualify as a book. At about 100 pages it can qualify as a short book (if it had been a work of fiction it would have been considered a novella), but I think that it’s better to consider this to be one of those short “Kindle Singles.” Except then it would be much more affordably priced.

As for the content, I am still a bit of a novice to the whole enterprising field. I have several close friends who have started their own companies, and based on their experience I can say that there is a lot of useful actionable advice in this book that can be applied to many of their particular situations. This book taps into the whole fields of agile development and lean startup culture, so if you are already familiar with some of those concepts you will be able to quickly skim through the material in here. If all of this doesn’t ring the bell, you will still be able to learn a lot of new things about these concepts, but I would also strongly recommend that you take a look at one of the more substantive books like “The Lean Startup.”

What this book lacks in substance it makes up in the concreteness of its content. It is filled with very specific advices, examples, and step-by-step procedures that any entrepreneur can easily implement. I am not qualified to speak about the usefulness and practicality of much of the advice for the well-established companies, but if you are new to the whole startup culture then this would be an excellent source of information to give you an idea about what you need to consider in implementing your own agile business.