diff --git a/README.adoc b/README.adoc
index 00582640fd9..58a2ec18a81 100755
--- a/README.adoc
+++ b/README.adoc
@@ -121,6 +121,13 @@ another project just mention that in your pull request.)_
 
 === Building reference documentation
 
+First of all, make sure you have built the project:
+
+[indent=0]
+----
+	$ ./mvnw clean install
+----
+
 The reference documentation requires the documentation of the Maven plugin to be
 available so you need to build that first since it's not generated by default.
 
@@ -129,8 +136,9 @@ available so you need to build that first since it's not generated by default.
 	$ ./mvnw clean install -pl spring-boot-tools/spring-boot-maven-plugin -Pdefault,full
 ----
 
-The documentation also includes auto-generated information about the starters. To
-allow this information to be collected, the starter projects must be built first:
+The documentation also includes auto-generated information about the starters. You might
+have that in your local repository already (per the first step) but if you want to refresh
+it:
 
 [indent=0]
 ----