If I had to summarize lean startup, it would be: speed is magic, speed is expensive. It's hard to convey to someone who's not had the epiphany just how much sp

If I had to summarize lean startup, it would be: speed is magic, speed is expensive. It's hard to convey to someone who's not had the epiphany just how much speed magically solves so many different problems in so many different domains for free, it's kind of amazing. But every incremental gain in speed is pretty expensive which is why people so often shy away from pressing on the gas pedal and dick around. As an example, the OP brings up that most founders are non-technical and it would cost them $50,000 to build an MVP. His conclusion from this is that MVPs are not worth it. Instead, the correct conclusion is that if building an MVP costs $50,000 and a few weeks of project management, you should instead invest your time in learning just enough prototyping skills so you can bring that down to a week and $200. And then you should invest another big chunk of your time in bringing that down again to 4 hours and $0. Is that hard and scary and look like it will take a lot of time? Yes. That's why so few entrepreneurs are successful, they want to believe there's an easy path to success which allows them to shy away from hard and scary things. The successful entrepreneurs are the ones who just put on their boots and attack the mountain until it's worn down.