Ash Maurya is a practitioner and entrepreneur. Author of Running Lean, Scaling Lean and the Lean Canvas, built on top of the Business Model Canvas. Ash is also the founder of LEANSTACK.

I took the chance to ask Ash a few questions. I tried to limit those as I had so many things I wanted to ask him. And Ash was kind enough to answer all of them!

Key takeaways * Entrepreneurs are risk-averse * Entrepreneurship is about getting in love with the problem * Avoid to fall in the innovator’s bias, or getting in love with the solution * Demo-sell-build rather than build-demo-sell * There is a key metric to assess the success of a business: Traction! * Business models can be categorized according to the actors and interactions involved in three kinds: direct, multisided and marketplace * Business models are always evolving * Searching for the proper business model means making it profitable * Look for the smallest market, that is big enough to make your business sustainable * You need to be fast from idea to execution, as a few ideas will turn out to be successful