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To be very honest, my first thought is that in all "HONESTY" you CANNOT do all this - its impossible to do all these things (claimed on the website), without ex

To be very honest, my first thought is that in all "HONESTY" you CANNOT do all this - its impossible to do all these things (claimed on the website), without experiencing those in person and it will vary from person to person based on the context, circumstances, idea etc. I think it will be a disservice to any confused soul (I am guessing those are the kind of people who would hit your site) by claiming to do things that are not practically possible, without actually experiencing those.

robfitz 16y ago
The app doesn't do anything for you, except give you a bit of scaffolding so you can make your own decisions. If you look at startup case studies, the worrying constant is how obvious most of their failures are. We lose track of our basic business assumptions and end up charging down dead-ends or building products nobody wants. By explicitly stating our assumptions in an easily consumable way, it keeps you aware of what you're trying to prove and helps you avoid those "obvious" mistakes.
- curiousfiddler 16y ago
  Okay here's a (hypothetical) use case: I want to create a software product, say a database, because I see myself solving a real problem by way of creating my product. My whole idea is driven by a real problem statement and my passion. How does this fit in here? Don't you think all those blocks are a little misleading for a product like this? Or like these: http://projects.apache.org/indexes/quick.html http://projects.apache.org/indexes/quick.html ?
  - robfitz 16y ago
    It's not a product management tool. There are lots of great options to help you do that, some of which I use. If you already have an idea that you think is a fact, and you are going to build it, regardless of what the world says, then you needn't write anything down. That's what most failed projects do/did. The canvas is meant to help when you see your ideas as hypotheses. You document them, and then you go try to find out if they're true or not (by talking to customers, building MVPs, watching mailing lists, whatever). If everything is true, you move on to scaling the business. If some of your initial beliefs turn out to be false, which is probable, then you have a place to go back and document your new learning, and hopefully see how that change will impact the rest of your assumptions.

robfitz 16y ago

The app doesn't do anything for you, except give you a bit of scaffolding so you can make your own decisions. If you look at startup case studies, the worrying constant is how obvious most of their failures are. We lose track of our basic business assumptions and end up charging down dead-ends or building products nobody wants. By explicitly stating our assumptions in an easily consumable way, it keeps you aware of what you're trying to prove and helps you avoid those "obvious" mistakes.

curiousfiddler 16y ago
Okay here's a (hypothetical) use case: I want to create a software product, say a database, because I see myself solving a real problem by way of creating my product. My whole idea is driven by a real problem statement and my passion. How does this fit in here? Don't you think all those blocks are a little misleading for a product like this? Or like these: http://projects.apache.org/indexes/quick.html http://projects.apache.org/indexes/quick.html ?
- robfitz 16y ago
  It's not a product management tool. There are lots of great options to help you do that, some of which I use. If you already have an idea that you think is a fact, and you are going to build it, regardless of what the world says, then you needn't write anything down. That's what most failed projects do/did. The canvas is meant to help when you see your ideas as hypotheses. You document them, and then you go try to find out if they're true or not (by talking to customers, building MVPs, watching mailing lists, whatever). If everything is true, you move on to scaling the business. If some of your initial beliefs turn out to be false, which is probable, then you have a place to go back and document your new learning, and hopefully see how that change will impact the rest of your assumptions.