Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This insightful book looks at the phenomenon of low-cost innovation and explores what we can learn from the innovators in developing nations who are making amazing technical and social advances with scarce capital and resources. Charles Leadbeater shows how these methods can be applied and used wherever you are and whatever your capital.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. viii)
• Preface: The Surfer and the Wave (p. x)
• 1 Ask for the Impossible (p. 1)
• 2 The Rush (p. 8)
• 3 The Squeeze (p. 19)
• 4 The Crunch (p. 34)
• 5 The Swell (p. 46)
• 6 Lean (p. 58)
• 7 Simple (p. 78)
• 8 Clean (p. 96)
• 9 Social (p. 121)
• 10 Who, How, Where? (p. 140)
• 11 In Reverse (p. 159)
• 12 Our Frugal Future (p. 181)
• References (p. 189)
• Bibliography (p. 194)
• Index (p. 196)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Successful bottom of the pyramid entrepreneurship requires more than just low-cost innovation. Though using limited resources and cheap materials is necessary for developing products that consumers can afford, the real challenge of such entrepreneurship is to create products under these limitations that consumers really want. Leadbeater, former industrial editor of Financial Times, argues that frugal innovation is critical to the future. As the world cannot long sustain seven billion people consuming resources at the rate of the world's top 5 percent consumers, there is an urgent need for innovations that appeal to the bottom of the pyramid while preserving resources and materials. Leadbeater identifies four common design principles that successful frugal products share (they are lean, simple, clean, and social), and he dedicates a chapter to each of them, giving examples of successful entrepreneurs whose products illustrate each principle. Leadbeater's emphasis on clean and social product innovation sets his work apart from other books on bottom of the pyramid innovation, such as Radjou, Prabhu, and Ahuja's Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth (2012). This new wave of innovation, which started in the developing world, is spreading globally. --Jay J. Janney, University of Dayton