“This book does not begin with your idea. It begins with what your idea is meant to make smaller.”
From idea-driven thinking to problem-solving
The hardest company to see clearly is the one you are building.
The Startup Compass gives you enough distance to see how your assumptions, decisions, and repetitions are already shaping the company’s direction, while there is still time to choose differently.
The book’s structure and content
Four directions. 21 chapters.
Begin with the value of the problem, or choose the chapter that meets your company where it is now. Every chapter includes a free excerpt.
Part 1
Mastering the Problem
Why should the company exist?
- 1.1The Value of the ProblemFree full chapter · 15 min.
- 1.2The Problem as a CompassFree excerpt · 13 min.
- 1.3The Timing of the ProblemFree excerpt · 16 min.
- 1.4Beneath the Surface of the ProblemFree excerpt · 10 min.
- 1.5Tool: The Five WhysFree excerpt · 10 min.
- 1.6Tool: First Principles ThinkingFree excerpt · 11 min.
Part 2
Ignition
How does the solution begin to work in reality?
Part 3
The Market
How does the world around the company respond?
Part 4
Time
How does the company protect its ability to continue and move toward the future?
Quotes from the book
Some sentences keep working.
The quote library brings together 40 selected lines from The Startup Compass. Open each quote with a little of what comes before and after, or download it in a format that fits where you want to share it.
Explore all 40 quotes →01The book’s premise 11The customer wants to see themselves “You want everyone. Your customers want themselves.”
22The measurement and the company can move in opposite directions “The measurement can improve while the company gets worse.”
12Depth before breadth “Depth has to come before breadth. Otherwise, growth becomes a larger version of the guesswork.”
24Growth can make the company poorer “You can grow yourself poorer.”
Illustrations from the book
An illustration can open a thought before the text explains it.
The book’s visual models are collected with their place and context in the text. Explore the available illustrations and see how they carry the argument.
Explore the illustrations →The book’s working section · 210 questions
A good question should be worth asking again.
The questions follow the book’s 21 chapters. They are not meant to be closed with one permanent answer, but asked again when the company, the market, or you have moved.
01Chapter 1.1 Can you describe the problem precisely without mentioning your solution?
02Chapter 1.6 What is the customer actually trying to achieve?
03Chapter 2.5 Which clear response from customers or the market is the team avoiding taking seriously because it challenges the product or the company's direction?
04Chapter 4.2 How much time passes between the company's action and that action being recorded, reconciled, and understood well enough to influence the next decision?
05Chapter 4.3 Which priority does the company talk about most, and where can it be seen in the calendar and the budget?
06Chapter 4.1 Which future is the company's largest expense buying?
07Chapter 2.4 Whom in your network can you ask for an honest answer without first turning the conversation into a transaction?
08Chapter 4.5 Who are you becoming?
The English edition
Start with the free reading.
Purchases are not open yet. You can explore the free chapters, excerpts, quotes, illustrations, and questions now.
The English EPUB is not available yet. Release is on hold until its ISBN is verified and final production checks are complete.