Fat startup: Learn the lessons of my failed Lean Startup

Fist of all, it might be not the right choice of methodology as government and non profit clients are not the best audience to apply "lean". These guys are very conservative, especially in Canada.

Second, it appears a lot of problems appeared because founders didn't know what they are building or what they want to build and relied on "lean" as a magic bullet to help them figure it out.

Third, it's hard to believe but I've met people who applied "lean" and other methodologies without actually diving deep and at least reading the underlying manifesto books thoroughly. Lean methodology is so easy, isn't it? Build an MVP and then iterate.

To sum it up, there's nothing wrong with lean methodology. These guys first failed at understanding it. Then no wonder that they double failed at execution.

It's not enough to simply survey people on whether or not they have a problem and then go build. Building good software means building something that people want to use. If you fail to properly dive into customer development and learn about your customers base (what tools do they currently use, who are the early adopters, what are the existing barriers to entry) then you will likely not succeed.

Simply reading one book and some blogs on Lean (or any other methodology) also does not make you an expert. You should read about many different business strategies to understand the key parts of them and how they are similar and different. It's a bit naive (arrogant?) to think you can just read a book and then go conquer the world without having to constantly learn and adapt during the process.

I'd like to suggest that all the lessons learned here are precisely what Lean Startup teaches-- with techniques that are meant to prevent you from spending two years in a death spiral.

Segue to edit of my standard rant on this subject: (originally posted on: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3429906)

MVP != half assed, cheap, shitty product. It is exactly what it says: a minimum viable product, key word being viable. An MVP for a mission critical application or a cutting edge piece of research isn't going to be cheap or easy, because it needs to be viable.

Because of the name, many people make the assumption that doing a Lean Startup means not taking the time or money necessary to execute properly, this is not the case. Lean means conserving capital by focusing on iteration until you each product market fit, and only then ramping up sales or marketing, but again, if you're cracking a new market, untested technology, or going up against mature competition, even that phase of conserving capital and focusing in product may require a lot of capital.

Your product, when released to customers, needs to be usable, and needs to scratch an itch for them, otherwise it is inherently not viable. That's why customer development is so essential, it prevents you from making the worst mistake possible-- building a robust product no one wants. Even if you have the best product idea in the world, the only way to know if the features you add are having a positive impact is to measure the behavior of real, live, human users.

That being said, it's still your responsibility to stay relentlessly focused in your core value proposition. You can't build every feature you're customers ask for, only the ones that make sense for your product.

What we're seeing now is the lean startup backlash where people use the terms but don't really take the time to understand what they mean,.

The Lean startup movement is a powerful set of lessons that can empower entrepreneurs and save us from wasting our time and effort building the wrong things and chasing the wrong metrics, but I guess some of the lessons just have to be learned painfully through experience (it was certainly true for me).

Ship early, ship fast, ask questions, write down answers, run tests. That's what "lean" is all about.

What I tell a lot of people: Iterate on ideas, do not iterate on quality.