4 ms·

Lean Startup is Crap

15 points by adib 13y ago

rurounijones 13y ago
Generally good advice, iffy strawman regarding lean startup, linkbait title.
ryall 13y ago
Lean != landing page
benjaminwootton 13y ago
This is the biggest strawman argument I've ever encountered on HN. Since when was 'lean startup' equated with putting up a landing page and not even telling anyone about it?
- 13hours 13y ago
  My thoughts while reading the post exactly. Read Reece's Lean Startup, and he gives specific examples on how to cheaply test the waters. Reducing all that to a landing page harvesting emails is completely the opposite of what Lean Startup proposes. Lean Startup is about measuring everything, and only doing what takes your idea forward. Anything else is wastage. If you need to measure potential uptake in a target market that won't find your landing page, then creating a landing page is wasting your time.
toumhi 13y ago
OP seems to equate Lean Startup with "build a landing page then see what happens". This is more about "wishing and hoping" method than lean. Lean advocates to design experiments to maximize learning from your target market and the problem you're aiming to solve. So, validating the problem, your solution, and talking to customers are definitely part of this process. Lean startup is no miracle way of guaranteed success, but it would be nice to see more constructed criticism of lean startup than linkbait articles that in the end don't contradict lean spirit at all.
seivan 13y ago
I see lean differently from most people. For me, lean means keeping a low operations cost and nothing but that. It's not HOW you do it, wether you build an alpha or just a landing page but just: KEEP A LOW OPERATIONS COST. That's it. Probably different from what most people consider to be lean, but that is all lean means to me.
stephengillie 13y ago
Basically, this is saying that if your MVP is floundering, it's not Viable enough, and it continues to provide good advice for how to extend the Viability of that MVP. Its a good reminder that complexity complicates our field at a double-exponential rate that continually increases, and thus the complexity of our deliverables must increase at a similar rate. Lean is still lean -- if your 3-man startup can do these things effectively from a $1000/mo apartment and are OK with ramen and occcasional McD, you can still do amazing things with less than $50,000/yr.
jbackus 13y ago
Terrible. This article by section: 1. Strawman defining the Learn Startup approach as creating a landing page and hoping for signups 2. Dismissal of strawman 3. Advocation for building a beta product and getting feedback AKA one of the fundamental concepts of the actual lean startup methodology 4. Lengthy plug for author's Yammer tool

15 points by adib 13y ago

rurounijones 13y ago

Generally good advice, iffy strawman regarding lean startup, linkbait title.

ryall 13y ago

Lean != landing page

benjaminwootton 13y ago

This is the biggest strawman argument I've ever encountered on HN. Since when was 'lean startup' equated with putting up a landing page and not even telling anyone about it?

13hours 13y ago
My thoughts while reading the post exactly. Read Reece's Lean Startup, and he gives specific examples on how to cheaply test the waters. Reducing all that to a landing page harvesting emails is completely the opposite of what Lean Startup proposes. Lean Startup is about measuring everything, and only doing what takes your idea forward. Anything else is wastage. If you need to measure potential uptake in a target market that won't find your landing page, then creating a landing page is wasting your time.

toumhi 13y ago

OP seems to equate Lean Startup with "build a landing page then see what happens". This is more about "wishing and hoping" method than lean. Lean advocates to design experiments to maximize learning from your target market and the problem you're aiming to solve. So, validating the problem, your solution, and talking to customers are definitely part of this process. Lean startup is no miracle way of guaranteed success, but it would be nice to see more constructed criticism of lean startup than linkbait articles that in the end don't contradict lean spirit at all.

seivan 13y ago

I see lean differently from most people. For me, lean means keeping a low operations cost and nothing but that. It's not HOW you do it, wether you build an alpha or just a landing page but just: KEEP A LOW OPERATIONS COST. That's it. Probably different from what most people consider to be lean, but that is all lean means to me.

stephengillie 13y ago

Basically, this is saying that if your MVP is floundering, it's not Viable enough, and it continues to provide good advice for how to extend the Viability of that MVP. Its a good reminder that complexity complicates our field at a double-exponential rate that continually increases, and thus the complexity of our deliverables must increase at a similar rate. Lean is still lean -- if your 3-man startup can do these things effectively from a $1000/mo apartment and are OK with ramen and occcasional McD, you can still do amazing things with less than $50,000/yr.

jbackus 13y ago

Terrible. This article by section: 1. Strawman defining the Learn Startup approach as creating a landing page and hoping for signups 2. Dismissal of strawman 3. Advocation for building a beta product and getting feedback AKA one of the fundamental concepts of the actual lean startup methodology 4. Lengthy plug for author's Yammer tool