Lean startup
The lean startup is a method for building ventures through rapid build-measure-learn cycles that test assumptions before scaling.
Most startups fail by building something nobody wants, efficiently. The lean startup is a method for finding that out before the money runs out.
The lean startup, an approach popularised by Eric Ries, is a method for building ventures through rapid build-measure-learn cycles that test the riskiest assumptions before committing to scale. Instead of writing a detailed plan and executing it, the founder treats the business as a series of hypotheses to be validated or refuted with real customers as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Assumptions, not plans
The core insight is that an early venture is built on guesses, about the customer, the problem, the solution, the willingness to pay, and that the biggest risk is being confidently wrong about one of them. Rather than elaborate a plan that compounds these guesses, the lean approach identifies the most dangerous assumptions and designs cheap experiments to test them. A business plan is a set of untested beliefs dressed up as facts; the method strips the costume off.
Build, measure, learn
The engine is a loop: build the smallest thing that tests an assumption, measure how real customers respond, and learn whether the assumption holds. The minimum viable product is the tool for this, the least elaborate version that yields valid learning. Speed through the loop matters more than polish, because each turn converts a guess into knowledge, and the venture that learns fastest with the least cash has the best odds.
Persevere or pivot
Each cycle ends in a decision: persevere with the current course because the evidence supports it, or pivot, changing direction while keeping what has been learned. The willingness to pivot on evidence, rather than cling to the original vision, is central, and so is the discipline not to pivot endlessly out of impatience.
The lean startup is sometimes caricatured as an excuse for shipping shoddy products. Properly understood, it is the opposite: a disciplined way to confront the brutal fact that most new ideas are wrong, and to discover which wrong assumption is yours before it bankrupts you.