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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

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Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#141

Post by tarsinge »

ryandrake wrote: post #93
simias wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> That one definitely sounds true to me, the complexity of modern software definitely makes it harder to be competitive with big shops. As software professionals, this is a problem of our own making. Nobody is asking for software to be complex. Users don’t want complexity. Development companies don’t want costly complexity. Software developers don’t even want complexity. Who has sat down at the start of a project and…

Exactly my thoughts. Had a chance to experience it first-hand recently (as explained in my other comment).

Edit:

> It’s fashionable to throw huge teams, hardware and middleware at problems these days.

My theory is that it comes down to :

- Clients and managers thinking that the UX/visual look has something to do with the front-end framework, forgetting that in the end any web app is just HTML, CSS and JS, and frameworks having more to do with maintenance.

- Shops lacking seniors, and young engineers (legitimately) more interested by the tech than solving the business problem in a boring way.

So here we are with the "fashion" that any business app must be done as a SPA "because it needs to look modern". You can see the opportunity.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#142

Post by DrNuke »

For what I see, it seems to me that hard STEM startups tackling industrial problems can’t work through the lean paradigm, that’s why too much too often their projects are shut down or internalized as soon as a nice acqui-hiring happens. In other words, bigger firms just scoop applied r&d teams in their field before they actually become a commercial threat.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#143

Post by lkrubner »

bobmarley1 wrote: post #20
lkrubner wrote: post #11

This needs to be balanced: " All this is driven by corporate funds, sovereign funds and even VC funds with capital pools of tens of billions of dollars dwarfing any of the dollars in the first Dot Com bubble – and all looking for the next Tesla, Uber, Airbnb, or Alibaba. " Yes, but this is the other reality of today, from Calculated Risk: " CR Note: Currently the target range for the federal funds rate is 1.75% to 2%…

Or you know maybe investors have smartened up and are unwilling to give money to the 20th "Uber for X" idea from some Stanford bros. Edit: Seems I hurt the feelings of Silicon Valley brogrammers selling their Uber for Dog Grooming with Blockchain AI startups lol.

I don't think you hurt anyone's feelings, but your comment is entirely beside the point. To say that there are too many startups imitating Uber is simply to repeat the point that savings continue to exceed the investment opportunities that investors find interesting, and therefore investors continue to give money to the government for free, or even in the face of the risk that they will suffer a small loss.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#144

Post by beamatronic »

ryandrake wrote: post #93
simias wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> That one definitely sounds true to me, the complexity of modern software definitely makes it harder to be competitive with big shops. As software professionals, this is a problem of our own making. Nobody is asking for software to be complex. Users don’t want complexity. Development companies don’t want costly complexity. Software developers don’t even want complexity. Who has sat down at the start of a project and…

Amen. If I knew something like ColdFusion I would be making web apps and starting businesses constantly, I love to solve user problems.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#145

Post by dasil003 »

AndrewWarner wrote: post #64

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 an…

This is a common pattern with all good ideas. You start with some hard-won ideas and principles that make a lot of sense. The ideas resonate and so they get picked up by a broader and broader set of people. Before long you have second and third tier advocates who are heavy on the Dunning-Kruger effect and short on actual insight. Now you have tons of straw-men for wannabe thought-leaders to rip apart mercilessly.

I don't blame Eric Ries for staying out of this fray, there's little to be gained by battling the tidal wave diluting the core idea.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#146

Post by salt-licker »

Overfunding is an existential risk for startups. Scaling a team before finding PMF seems like a blunder in most circumstances.

Instead of setting your best engineers to work creating the best product, they're busy recruiting and dealing with company growing pains from the get-go. The mythical man-month and scarcity of great people combine to diminish your returns on this hiring. Furthermore, battleships don't turn on a dime, and you may be hiring a lot of irrelevant expertise if you have to pivot later. This is why Stripe took 6 months to hire its first 2 people.

Furthermore, huge funding means investors are looking for a huge returns. A $1b sale is now failure?? My gut says this "go big or go bankrupt" pressure encourages tunnel vision among leadership rather than innovation.

Essential Products was overfunded in late 2015 and is already up for sale. I think Magic Leap and Desktop Metal will end up as similar cautionary tales.

I see good arguments for overfunding if (1) there's huge capital costs for development and high probability of large exit regardless of technology success (e.g. biotech) or (2) you're trying to capture a market with a strong network effect. The second case seems dangerous though, e.g. is Uber's popularity really a moat? What if they had spent their billions on developing a product with a real technological advantage instead of scaling to the world first?

As a huge fan of his book, I'm sad to see Steve Blank largely ignore these ideas in his article.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#147

Post by wpietri »

AndrewWarner wrote: post #64

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 an…

I think the core problem here is (lack of) consulting dollars.

The Agile movement got huge in part because a lot of its proponents could make good money promoting it. E.g., the MLM scheme that is Scrum certification. Or the many consultants, some good and some bad, who made bank teaching it to people. (I did that for a while.) This was also the death of what I think of as "real Agile" because the great bulk of consulting money on offer was selling watered-down Scrum to giant companies who wanted the feeling of change without hard work or actual change.

But there's no money in startup consulting. Startups don't have much money, and startup founders a) think they know things better than everybody else, and b) think they can ignore most of what matters to other businesses. (I'm a former startup founder, so that's not knocking anybody; it's just what's required by circumstance.) I know people who have started great startup-focused consulting businesses, and they've all gone elsewhere because it's impossible to make a living doing it.

From what I know of Ries's consulting it was at places like GE [1]. GE is definitely not a startup, but really wanted to be innovative and presumably paid him a bundle. And now he's moved on to the Long Term Stock Exchange. [2] This all strikes me as reasonable. He did his bit and set the ideas free into the world. Although I'd love it if he spent more time promoting the Lean Startup approach, I totally get why he's focused on doing what he wants, not what I want.

As an aside, for those still interested in discussing the topic, Lean Startup Circle still exists and still has an active mailing list. I'd love to see more people there: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/lean-startup-circle

[1] https://www.ge.com/reports/digital-magic-eric-ries-brought-s...

[2] https://ltse.com/team

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#148

Post by vkou »

salt-licker wrote: post #146

Overfunding is an existential risk for startups. Scaling a team before finding PMF seems like a blunder in most circumstances. Instead of setting your best engineers to work creating the best product, they're busy recruiting and dealing with company growing pains from the get-go. The mythical man-month and scarcity of great people combine to diminish your returns on this hiring. Furthermore, battleships don't turn on…

> Furthermore, huge funding means investors are looking for a huge returns. A $1b sale is now failure?? My gut says this "go big or go bankrupt" pressure encourages tunnel vision among leadership rather than innovation.

If you don't take the money, they will go to your competitor, and give it to them instead.

If you're in a space where you can be killed by your competitor selling $1 for 90 cents, that will kill you just as dead.

It doesn't matter if Uber's popularity is a 'real' moat or not, as long as its a moat big enough to drown you.

Sure, a few years later, said competitor will make an announcement on their website about the conclusion of their 'magical journey', but that's not going to matter to you, is it?

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#149

Post by jondubois »

cle wrote: post #135
ryandrake wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That one definitely sounds true to me, the complexity of modern software definitely makes it harder to be competitive with big shops. As software professionals, this is a problem of our own making. Nobody is asking for software to be complex. Users don’t want complexity. Development companies don’t want costly complexity. Software developers don’t even want complexity. Who has sat down at the start of a project and…

In many companies, big complex software is desirable, because of poor incentive structures. I've seen many projects ballon into vastly over-complex nightmares, because engineers are often rewarded for solving "hard" and "complex" problems. So with complicit management (who are also rewarded when their engineers are promoted), they invent complexity and then "solve" it.

Venture capital has corrupted the tech industry to its core.

The VC cash machine has brought us nothing except short term thinking, get-rich-quick schemes, social manipulation, herd mentality, idol-worship, media corruption and corporate growth.

I look forward to the next tech bubble. I hope they all get wiped out.

Re: Is the Lean Startup Dead?

#150

Post by GFischer »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #83

The low hanging fruit has been picked and we’re waiting for the next technology trigger. My friend said to me recently, not only are all the good ideas taken, but so are all the bad ideas.

I don't believe that at all. Maybe the low hanging fruit in San Francisco has been taken, but the future is not evenly distributed... opportunities everywhere (read a headline about a Nigerian startup getting funded, that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about).
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