Steve I have read your blog posts sporadically for years and am running a startup working on a wicked problem area (fully autonomous food preparation, retail an

Steve I have read your blog posts sporadically for years and am running a startup working on a wicked problem area (fully autonomous food preparation, retail and logistics) and would be happy to provide a case study in practical approaches we have used. Incidentally I will be in CA in the next few months and we are raising. Frankly our best strategies to date have been common ones: business-level modeling as a means to ensure strategic validity, in-depth study of predecessors and competitors, commitment to rapid iteration, brainstorming, first principles thinking, breaking down the problem, broad and dynamic base of contributors (different professional skillsets and mentalities), extensive documentation, looking at the whole problem, investing in developing required specialist skills, etc. After seven years of hard work according to public sources we are now the world leader in our space by multiple objective metrics, from which I would suggest we have been successful technically as well as financially. IMHO there's no secret sauce. It takes a lot of time and money and concerted effort. A lean / startup approach just allows more efficient execution.