Ries earned a B.S. in computer science from Yale University in 2001. While still an undergraduate at Yale, he began his career as an entrepreneur by co-founding CatalystRecruiting.com, an online database of student resumes. From 2001 to 2003 he worked as a senior engineer at There.com. In 2004 Ries and There.com founder Will Harvey co-founded IMVU, a social network, where he worked as CTO until 2009.
Ries was named one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech by Bloomberg Businessweek in 2007.
Since 2008, Ries has blogged, written, and spoken at meetings and conferences about his "Lean Startup" methodology. He also serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School. In 2010, Ries invested in Votizen. In August 2011 he was named to the strategic advisory board of Alphabet Energy, Inc., a manufacturer of thermoelectric materials for waste-heat recovery.
He currently resides in San Fransisco.
The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses
The Startup Way: How Entrepreneurial Management Transforms Culture and Drives Growth