231–240 of 618 posts
The founders and business models of Costco, Patagonia and Novo Nordisk are so radically different from so-called "tech startup" founders^1 that one must consider this in any analysis 1. Who lack a legitimate business model hence have resorted to "data collection from/about computer users, surveillance of computer users even when engaged in non-commercial activity and online advertising services" with generally free,…
My biggest struggle with this question is that "going bad" sometimes coincides with not just financial incentives, but also more people getting value out of it. For example Spotify gradually shifting from "we make it easy to curate and share playlists" to "we make them for you to use as background music constantly." Sometimes what's bad for the early power user is great for the late adopter, and it's difficult to mak…
This, of course, makes on boarding and new user acquisition harder, and can severely limit product growth. And this also leaves space for simpler products to come along and cater to the novice market. Or, companies can fight this tendency, and remove features, or make them harder to use, in order to cater to less demanding demographics.
What I'd be curious about is what spotify looks like as their market share levels off. Do they keep catering to the automatic playlist crowd, or does their average user get more sophisticated over time?
Hi Eric, former IDEOer here. I know you spent some time at IDEO observing how we work. In my time there (2014-2024), it felt like most clients misinterpreted "MVP" to mean "the absolute lowest-effort barely-working code that we can rush out to say we shipped something." When they did manage to ship a low-quality MVP, they had no budget for maintenance or iteration. Basically, they shipped a rushed, crappy product, an…
I don't think you can put an idea out into the world without understanding that some people are going to willfully misunderstand it. We live now, especially in the age where literally ignorance is optional. When you see someone who misunderstands what an MVP is, you know that they haven't spent even five minutes reading the Wikipedia page or made any effort to try to understand it. I don't consider such people to be good faith interlocutors, and therefore I don't really think the fact that they criticize or don't understand the concept is that relevant to the rest of us who are capable of thinking for ourselves.
At the end of the day, I try to lay out in my first book the reasons why the theory that gives rise to MVP and the rest of the Lean Startup makes sense, is logical, and is consistent with a set of first principles. As a result, that theory is capable of making predictions which you can test for yourself.
Writing now for other founders who might encounter this page: If you look elsewhere in this thread, you will find lots and lots and lots of entrepreneurs who are saying how much they found these concepts helpful. You shouldn't do it because other people said so. Rather, you should take that as inspiration to think for yourself, try it, and see if the theory strikes you as valid.
Book recommendations?
does this apply for a company of every type? does it work for companies like apple as well?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want to distinguish between a mission and a mission statement. I will not help you wordsmith your mission statement. I frankly don't think it matters. But a great mission generally combines three things: 1. a long-term commitment to maximize some aspect of human flourishing (in the book I explain how this is the true definition of what it means to create a for-profit venture) 2. a set of values that include a deter…
"1. a long-term commitment to maximize some aspect of human flourishing (in the book I explain how this is the true definition of what it means to create a for-profit venture" How does this square with the widely taught business-school definition of a for-profit entity being something that aims to maximize shareholder value?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"1. a long-term commitment to maximize some aspect of human flourishing (in the book I explain how this is the true definition of what it means to create a for-profit venture" How does this square with the widely taught business-school definition of a for-profit entity being something that aims to maximize shareholder value?
Not eries (obviously) but if you switch out shareholder for stakeholder i.e. maximise stakeholder value, you gain a wider set of responsibilities more aligned with Eric's comment. This is in itself not a new idea, it partly emerged out of the work of R. Edward Freeman. His original book on stakeholder management was published in 1984 and over the last decade has become at least a regular discussion topic at many busi…
How much of the "financial gravity" do you attribute to VCs? I've noticed that VCs try very hard to separate the world into "VCs + founders" and "everyone else" and that the more time a founder spends in the VC+founders bubble the more distorted their worldview can become.
The sad fact is that most VCs are not even consciously aware that they're doing this. They are simply the agents of a deeper force.