There was a lot more in Sandberg's Lean In that chastised women in ways that showed her privilege, that were harmful, and that she came to regret. Her book Plan B with Adam Grant was a sort of course correction. I could not in good conscience vote for her book.
The fun thing about Lean Startup that doesn't get discussed enough: there's no actual evidence it works.
The ideas are intuitive and easy to sell — build small, measure, iterate, don't fall in love with your assumptions. It's hard to argue with any of that in the abstract. But as far as I can tell, no one has ever demonstrated that companies following lean startup methodology outperform companies who _just do stuff_. It's a framework that spread through persuasion and vibes.
Ironic, given that "validated learning" is supposedly the whole point.
The deeper problem is that it makes the same error as all innovation process frameworks: it assumes the path to product-market fit is navigable via better procedure. You might already know Cedric Chin, but he spent two years studying business cases specifically to find universal patterns for navigating what VCs call the "idea maze". His conclusion? There aren't any.
In short, success is idiosyncratic. The only things that actually generalise are: take affordable risks, build partnerships over doing analysis, and stay in the game long enough to get lucky. None of that requires a "methodology".
So on one level Lean Startup doesn't work because it's too psychologically difficult in practice – "build, measure, learn" nearly always corrupts into build, build, build. But on a deeper level, it's built on philosophical sand – it turns out that you _can't_ explicate all your assumptions, let alone reductively test your way through them in a way that creates predictability.
It looks like it's another airport business classic: a compelling story about one guy's particular failure and success narrative, retrospectively cohered into a system that catches on – regardless of whether it works.
I'm now also following something like you described with "convictions with a deadline", aka "Do 100 Thing". Like you identified, it's not deterministic – it's just about staying in the game long enough to get lucky sometimes.
There was a lot more in Sandberg's Lean In that chastised women in ways that showed her privilege, that were harmful, and that she came to regret. Her book Plan B with Adam Grant was a sort of course correction. I could not in good conscience vote for her book.
Lean in for me was great. It pushed me to push myself more. I like how you combined the concepts with this …conviction with a deadline.
How do you feel about the concept of “conviction with a budget?” Smart or limiting ?
Absolutely! In my latest book I wrote about The Power of Constraints in a chapter.
Hehe, love it!
The fun thing about Lean Startup that doesn't get discussed enough: there's no actual evidence it works.
The ideas are intuitive and easy to sell — build small, measure, iterate, don't fall in love with your assumptions. It's hard to argue with any of that in the abstract. But as far as I can tell, no one has ever demonstrated that companies following lean startup methodology outperform companies who _just do stuff_. It's a framework that spread through persuasion and vibes.
Ironic, given that "validated learning" is supposedly the whole point.
The deeper problem is that it makes the same error as all innovation process frameworks: it assumes the path to product-market fit is navigable via better procedure. You might already know Cedric Chin, but he spent two years studying business cases specifically to find universal patterns for navigating what VCs call the "idea maze". His conclusion? There aren't any.
In short, success is idiosyncratic. The only things that actually generalise are: take affordable risks, build partnerships over doing analysis, and stay in the game long enough to get lucky. None of that requires a "methodology".
So on one level Lean Startup doesn't work because it's too psychologically difficult in practice – "build, measure, learn" nearly always corrupts into build, build, build. But on a deeper level, it's built on philosophical sand – it turns out that you _can't_ explicate all your assumptions, let alone reductively test your way through them in a way that creates predictability.
It looks like it's another airport business classic: a compelling story about one guy's particular failure and success narrative, retrospectively cohered into a system that catches on – regardless of whether it works.
I'm now also following something like you described with "convictions with a deadline", aka "Do 100 Thing". Like you identified, it's not deterministic – it's just about staying in the game long enough to get lucky sometimes.