精实创业是一种发展商业模式与开发产品的方法，由埃里克·莱斯(Eric Ries)在2011首次提出。根据Ries之前在数个美国新创公司的工作经验，他认为新创团队可以借由集成「以实验验证商业假设」、「快速更新产品」、还有他所说的「验证式学习」，来缩短他们的产品开发周期。整体来说，Ries认为，新创团队如果愿意投资他们的时间来快速更新产品与服务，以提供给早期用户试用，那他们便能减少市场的风险，避免掉早期计划所需要的大量资金、昂贵的产品上架，与失败。

精实创业最初只是2008年Ries在高科技公司任职时的一个想法，现在则已经被广泛应用至任何希望将产品推广到市场上的产业、团队，或公司。今日，精实创业已经自其诞生地硅谷传播至全世界，大部分的功劳要归功于Ries的纽约时报畅销书榜书籍：《精实创业：今日的创业家如何运用持续的创新去创造快速成功的事业。》

Lean startup is a method for developing businesses and products first proposed in 2008 by Eric Ries. Based on his previous experience working in several U.S. startups, Ries claims that startups can shorten their product development cycles by adopting a combination of business-hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, and what he calls validated learning. Ries' overall claim is that if startups invest their time into iteratively building products or services to meet the needs of early customers, they can reduce the market risks and sidestep the need for large amounts of initial project funding and expensive product launches and failures.