Comments on: 5th Anti-Lean Startup Archetype – We Already Do It

By: brantcooper

brantcooper — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:06:55 +0000

Hi Laura,
Thanks for the comment! I agree, the fifth is the most pernicious. In my experience, people are often saying “Oh yeah, talking to customers. Of course we do that.” Then on to the same old, same old.

Brant

By: Laura Klein

Laura Klein — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:37:15 +0000

Really great posts. I think this fifth archetype is the most dangerous one, since they think they’re doing everything right, so it’s much harder to get them to change their behavior!

I am constantly shocked by how bad companies are at doing lean customer development, even when they’ve studied MVP and the lean start up methodologies. Perhaps the worst part is that, even when they DO go out and talk to their customers, people often have no idea how to get the right information or turn that into a better product.

By: David Locke

David Locke — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:10:14 +0000

What got lost during the dot boom, was the awareness of the distinction between selling technology and selling through software. The latter were retailers who should have gotten their money from banks not VC. But, they had another problem and that was selling to Geeks. Moore talked about that in his technology adoption lifecycle books.

Today, we have a similar problem with web-based companies that end up with content economics, rather than technology economics.

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Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:26:46 +0000

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By: Kevin Dewalt

Kevin Dewalt — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:10:34 +0000

Brant,

Great post and I totally agree. I actually think the issue runs deeper than this; at its core it is a limitation how people think. It is really hard for entrepreneurs – myself included – to really accept the limitations of our own minds and thinking and use the Scientific Method when evaluating our vision. Kida’s “Don’t Believe Everything you Think” is a great primer on these ideas, http://tinyurl.com/KidaBook.

Having started and funded companies in the boom and the bust it is clear to me that “lean” thinking gets in vogue during the times of capital contraction (like now). In the post dot-com era Rob Adams’ book “A good hard kick in the ass”, http://tinyurl.com/AdamsBook, presented much of the same strategies of detailed market vetting early in a company’s lifecycle. Unfortunately people stopped talking about it once the money started flowing again.

I would like to think that it will change, but I don’t see evidence that it ever will because it is too hard to get people to think differently when they are not fully committed to approaching their business ideas with the same objectivity (and passion) that scientists use.