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It's not enough to simply survey people on whether or not they have a problem and then go build. Building good software means building something that people wan

by dkoston 14y ago

It's not enough to simply survey people on whether or not they have a problem and then go build. Building good software means building something that people want to use. If you fail to properly dive into customer development and learn about your customers base (what tools do they currently use, who are the early adopters, what are the existing barriers to entry) then you will likely not succeed. Simply reading one book and some blogs on Lean (or any other methodology) also does not make you an expert. You should read about many different business strategies to understand the key parts of them and how they are similar and different. It's a bit naive (arrogant?) to think you can just read a book and then go conquer the world without having to constantly learn and adapt during the process.

dkoston 14y ago
Sorry to add to my rant but I get really tired of hearing the "X methodology killed my business" story. There have been hundreds of thousands of successful businesses created and operated by people without formal training in any strategy so why should having read about a business strategy destroy your business? Did it remove your ability to talk to customers and respond to their concerns? People often fail to address internal issues like limited domain expertise or limited business skills. It's not enough just to see a problem and be excited about solving it, you need some skills (either present or learned) and you need resources. Lean is focused around learnings. If you had focused on learning rather than whether or not you completed a task (MVP, demo, etc), you'd realize that you've gained a lot from the experience but it wasn't until you reflected that you realized you failed to incorporate those learnings back into the business. Also, failure to understand that your first customer wasn't an early-adopter really hurt you. If someone isn't willing to jump through hoops to use your product, it either 1) doesn't solve a big enough problem or 2) they aren't an early-adopter.

by dkoston 14y ago

dkoston 14y ago

Sorry to add to my rant but I get really tired of hearing the "X methodology killed my business" story. There have been hundreds of thousands of successful businesses created and operated by people without formal training in any strategy so why should having read about a business strategy destroy your business? Did it remove your ability to talk to customers and respond to their concerns? People often fail to address internal issues like limited domain expertise or limited business skills. It's not enough just to see a problem and be excited about solving it, you need some skills (either present or learned) and you need resources. Lean is focused around learnings. If you had focused on learning rather than whether or not you completed a task (MVP, demo, etc), you'd realize that you've gained a lot from the experience but it wasn't until you reflected that you realized you failed to incorporate those learnings back into the business. Also, failure to understand that your first customer wasn't an early-adopter really hurt you. If someone isn't willing to jump through hoops to use your product, it either 1) doesn't solve a big enough problem or 2) they aren't an early-adopter.