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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

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Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#61

Post by dri_ft »

simias wrote: post #49
awvcs wrote: post #37

I wish it wasn't so but I do think to the degree you can declare something dead the lean startup is. The problem is that lean startups requires a number of things that aren't accessible anymore. A) Maybe the most important is time. You need time in a good environment to actually develop something. Which has become a lot more costly. B) Large companies are controlling more areas than ever. People often wary of regulat…

>A) Maybe the most important is time. You need time in a good environment to actually develop something. Which has become a lot more costly. Why do you think that is? I'm not sure what you're referring to exactly. >B) Large companies are controlling more areas than ever. People often wary of regulation as a barrier, but as time goes by the market participants creates their own barriers. Many areas are just harder to…

> Like this story I remember reading on HN of the hacker who managed to write a task switching application for some Apple computer of the time and managed to sell it to Steve Jobs (I don't remember all the details and I can't find the article at the moment).

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#62

Post by secfirstmd »

oneshoe wrote: post #59

Lean Startup may or may not be dead but my Boss is going to continue to misuse the term MVP regardless. It pains me to think that this term isn't going away. I believe it will be used by managers for a long time to make developers forgo good development practices in lieu of getting that minimal ~viable~ product out.

Its become such an overblown annoying cult.

The core idea is good but even the book itself was trying to stretch an academic paper further than it needed to go.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#63

Post by mindcrime »

edanm wrote: post #9
1ba9115454 wrote: post #3

For every Startup raising $X million in funding there are probably a thousand solo entrepreneurs bootstrapping their way into profitability. The spotlight only shines on "Startup X raises millions in new round". Side projects are the new Lean startup.

Solo entrepreneurs are not starting a startup, not as I (and most people) understand the term. After all, those thousands of "solo entrepreneurs" are starting things like coffee-shops, restaurants, garages, etc. They're examples of entrepreneurship, sure, but not startups. Startups are specifically organizations that are trying to grow very big, or that are looking to try a new business model. The reason the spotligh…

Solo entrepreneurs are not starting a startup, not as I (and most people) understand the term. After all, those thousands of "solo entrepreneurs" are starting things like coffee-shops, restaurants, garages, etc. They're examples of entrepreneurship, sure, but not startups.

Solo entrepreneurs absolutely start things besides coffee shops, restaurants, garages, etc. There is nothing inherent in the definition of "startup" that precludes solo founders. Especially when you think in terms of "you're solo until you aren't". Just like "you're bootstrapped, until you aren't".

Taking on co-founders, raising external capital, etc., are all things you do when you get to the point that they are necessary.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#64

Post by AndrewWarner »

The problem I see with the Lean Startup is that Eric Ries isn’t actively promoting, defending and explaining it.

On Mixergy, I interview founders who try to make their bones or get attention for their messages by disagreeing with the Lean approach.

Eric doesn’t debate, correct or engage with them. So they get to make statements without anyone credible taking them on.

Listen to my latest interview it’s Rand Fishkin and you’ll see what I mean. He’s not anti-Lean, but he’s disagreeing with it his book to make get attention for his message. With a bit of pushback from me, he admits as much.

Each one of these mini-attacks from accomplished entrepreneurs hurts Lean’s credibility.

Only Eric has the credibility and social grace to disagree and explain in a way that builds up The Lean Startup.

I’d love to see him step into the conversation more. He and pg defined how to run a successful startup more than any two people I know.

We need to hear more from both of them.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#65

Post by fragmede »

edanm wrote: post #31
TekMol wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that definition many unicorns that are seen as prototypes of successful startups would never have been startups. I think you have been tricked by YC and other VCs to accept this definition of 'built from the start for hyper-growth'. That's how they get their share of young promising companies. To me and most people I know, a startup is a project or company in the growth phase.

> By that definition many unicorns that are seen as prototypes of successful startups would never have been startups. I don't think that's true? Which unicorns are not companies that were pursuing high-growth, or that were trying to build a unique product business model? > I think you have been tricked by YC and other VCs to accept this definition of 'built from the start for hyper-growth'. I haven't been tricked int…

Silicon Valley holds very dear the romantic Jobsian definition of "startup" - two individuals bootstrapping a company from their garage (though Woz has stated "We did no designs there, no breadboarding, no prototyping, no planning of products. We did no manufacturing there.”).

English being what it is, it is fine for "lean startup" to have a different definition of startup from the word "startup", confusing as that may be.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#66

Post by sandworm101 »

simias wrote: post #49
awvcs wrote: post #37

I wish it wasn't so but I do think to the degree you can declare something dead the lean startup is. The problem is that lean startups requires a number of things that aren't accessible anymore. A) Maybe the most important is time. You need time in a good environment to actually develop something. Which has become a lot more costly. B) Large companies are controlling more areas than ever. People often wary of regulat…

>A) Maybe the most important is time. You need time in a good environment to actually develop something. Which has become a lot more costly. Why do you think that is? I'm not sure what you're referring to exactly. >B) Large companies are controlling more areas than ever. People often wary of regulation as a barrier, but as time goes by the market participants creates their own barriers. Many areas are just harder to…

Disruption doesn't come from direct competition. Writing another web browser isn't going to disrupt the market for web browsers. You need a new concept in how we access web-type material. That would disrupt, and wouldn't need much code. Look at Napster et al. They weren't massive but still disrupted the music industry.

The gaming industry still has room for lone coders to make a difference. Many of the top indi games are/were written by individuals (KSP, Minecraft) or by very small groups (Factorio). Sometimes being able to do something leaner, with less code, means you can win ground against the biggest of big guys (City Skylines over SimCity).

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#67

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #24
geetfun wrote: post #8

As a bootstrapper, I see the point of what this article is trying to say. It's been increasingly difficult to create products that can find product market fit/validation and reach a scale where the income justifies the effort. And to top it off, the MVPs are becoming much more full product than simple landing page MVPs of years past -- and all of this requires a lot of capital (time, money, connections, volunteers, e…

Why is it increasingly difficult? Has something really changed in the past few years?

[deleted]

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#68

Post by icedchai »

mason55 wrote: post #45
edanm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solo entrepreneurs are not starting a startup, not as I (and most people) understand the term. After all, those thousands of "solo entrepreneurs" are starting things like coffee-shops, restaurants, garages, etc. They're examples of entrepreneurship, sure, but not startups. Startups are specifically organizations that are trying to grow very big, or that are looking to try a new business model. The reason the spotligh…

Pretty interesting how much argument there is against this view on HN. I guess most people coming here now are not familiar with Paul Graham's essay (maybe most HN posters don't even know who Paul Graham is any more) http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html > A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technol…

It's possible for a solo entrepreneur company to have significant growth.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#69

Post by fixermark »

To what extent does user trust factor into how lean a startup can be?

A small company can't afford to spend a lot of resources on data integrity and protection, encryption and retention best practices, keeping up with laws like the GDPR, and they're that much closer to going bankrupt and having the data they've collected become part of asset liquidation and auction. It seems like these days, the discerning consumer ought to put more trust in a larger company's offerings in a given space than a smaller company, and even be wary of a smaller company that's offering something truly novel if that novelty isn't worth the price of private data being at-risk.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#70

Post by edoceo »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #36

Yes and no. IMHO Lean has generated a lot of startups that had too much of a narrow focus and optimized away all the potentially interesting parts of their products because they were focusing on a MVP that turned out to be lacking in the V part because they were focusing on the M part. There's this great presentation by Don Reinertsen "Second Generation Lean Product Development Flow": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=…

""the baby with the bathwater by focusing on only doing things that had low option value and low risk. ""

That's not what the Lean Startup says.

Lean is about reducing risk but that doesn't box one into only doing low risk/value activity

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