The problem with a Lean Startup: the Minimum Viable Product.

Re:The problem with a Lean Startup: the Minimum Viable Product. by yo-mf on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @11:32AM (#4814889)

What they do not tell you in lean startup; your early users are your unwitting product testers. Thus the calculus becomes how quickly you can plug the gaps and deliver the real MVP before your users bail en masse.

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Re:The problem with a Lean Startup: the Minimum Viable Product. by richardjordan on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @02:26PM (#4815842)

It also assumes you have no social capital that can be burned by channeling folks towards trying something on your word and then finding it isn't - in the eyes of the user - a finished product, it's broken or under-featured. Reputations can be ruined like this.

It's not all Dropbox posting a signup form with no product behind it or Steve Jobs building the iPhone from whole cloth in secret with nothing in between. There's a continuum and startups can find their own spot on that path. IMHO

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Re:The problem with a Lean Startup: the Minimum Viable Product. by wpietri on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @11:46PM (#4817520)

This is true of every startup. (E.g., see Crossing the Chasm.) And of every company, really. Even mature companies do a ton of product testing on their audiences.

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