The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses · chapter 7 · id the-lean-startup-c7-01-innovation-accounting-is-a-new

“Innovation accounting is a new way to measure progress for startups, using three learning milestones: (1) establish the baseline, (2) tune the engine, (3) pivot or persevere. This fills the gap where traditional accounting fails.”

contestedconfidence: high⚠ extracted by pipeline, re-audit pending

Receipts

McGrath & MacMillan (1995), Discovery-Driven Planning, Harvard Business Reviewsource alive

Discovery-Driven Planning uses reverse income statements and systematic assumption testing to measure progress under uncertainty. Published 16 years before The Lean Startup.

Kaplan & Norton (1992), Balanced Scorecard, Harvard Business Reviewsource alive

The Balanced Scorecard already provided a multi-perspective metrics framework including learning and growth, with extensive empirical validation across thousands of organizations.

Toma & Gons (2021), Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guidesource alive

Toma and Gons wrote a full book attempting to formalize innovation accounting, implicitly acknowledging Ries' version was too vague to implement as described.

This claim is a stable, citable object. If you can falsify a verdict, tell us — corrections are loud here.