The reality is the Lean Startup method is not about cost, it is about speed. Lean startups waste less money, because they use a disciplined approach to testing new products and ideas.
Interpretation
The Lean Startup method prioritizes quick experimentation over excessive spending.
Eric Ries emphasizes that the core principle of the Lean Startup methodology is to focus on the speed of testing and validating new ideas rather than simply minimizing costs. This approach allows entrepreneurs to confirm whether their product ideas truly resonate with customers without committing large amounts of financial resources upfront, leading to smarter and more efficient business practices.
In practice
In a business workshop, one might use this quote to encourage entrepreneurs to prioritize quick market testing.
There's nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital. What differentiates them is their disciplined approach to determining when to spend money: after the fundamental elements of the business model have been empirically validated.
Building the right product requires systematically and relentlessly testing that vision to discover which elements of it are brilliant, and which are crazy.
A lot of entrepreneurs hate big companies. But if you hate them so much, why are you trying to build a new one? The truth is, as soon as a startup has any kind of success whatsoever, it will face big company problems.
The grim reality is that most start-ups fail. Most new products are not successful. Yet the story of perseverance, creative genius, and hard work persists.
You get a culture of entrepreneurship after you have successfully changed the accountability system so that people can use a better process. Process drives culture, not the other way around, so you can't just change the culture, you have to change the system.
Learning to see waste and systematically eliminate it has allowed lean companies such as Toyota to dominate entire industries. Lean thinking defines value as 'providing benefit to the customer'; anything else is waste.
You should not build your customer service system on the premise that your organisation will never question the whims of your clients.
Mastering the paradox of star brands is very difficult and rare - fortunately.
At a big company, often size turns into constipation; it fogs the lens about what's really happening. Sometimes with size and success comes the notion that since we've done things to be successful, we have the formula and can institutionalize it. That can be death.
I think that the direct conversation is exactly what companies need to earn trust of customers. Admit an error. Fix a problem. Commit to doing better. That is only human.
The true purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer, not to make you money.
We used to think that everything started in the lab. Now we realize that everything spins off the consumer.
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