Author: Eric Ries

Brant Cooper helps kickstart innovation. He helps organizations big and small move the needle. Coming from the startup world, his career includes Tumbleweed, Timestamp, Wild Packets, in Code, and many others. He has experienced IPO, acquisition, rapid growth, and miserable failure. Prior to the New York Times bestselling The Lean Entrepreneur, Brant authored The Entrepreneur”s Guide to Customer Development, the first purpose-written book to discuss lean startup and customer development concepts, earning a distribution of over 50, 000 copies. Through Market By Numbers, he helped develop and publish the bestselling The Lean Brand, bringing lean innovation practices to the marketing side of the house. Brant is Co-Founder and CEO of Moves the Needle, which has worked with hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs across the globe. He is an internationally sought-after keynote speaker, startup mentor, and corporate advisor, and has presented to and worked with leading companies such as Google, Qualcomm, Intuit, Capital One, GE, and Transamerica. Brant tweets at @brantcooper. He lives with (and continuously learns from) his two daughters, Riva and Eliza, near Swami”s in Encinitas, California. Patrick Vlaskovits is a New York Times bestselling author, speaker, and entrepreneur. His writing has been featured on the Harvard Business Review blog, the Wall Street Journal blog, and The Browser. Patrick routinely speaks at technology conferences nationally and internationally, including SXSW, GROW Conference, the Turing Festival, and the Lean Startup Conference. The Lean Entrepreneur is his second book. The first, The Entrepreneur”s Guide to Customer Development, is a required course text for MBA and undergrad students at universities such as the University of Chicago Booth School and Berkeley. He has also guest-lectured at Stanford and UCLA. Patrick advises multiple technology startups, and serves as a mentor for 500 Startups, a seed fund and startup accelerator. As a speaker and consultant, he counts Fortune 100 companies in his client list. For some unknown reason, Patrick holds a master”s in economics from UC Santa Barbara. He lives in Austin, Texas with his family. Tweet at him @Pv.