rafer:

I gave a talk last evening at the JFDI Bootcamp in which I pushed on how people were applying the Lean Startup ethos. Because I’m a known PITA, a couple people asked me if I was attacking the ethos itself. I’m not. Blank’s work (and by extension Ries’s) are great, should be followed at the beginning of most Internet ventures, will save lots of founders years of grief, etc. I’m all in. 

However, two things bug me pretty consistently when faced with a dozen lean startups being incubated:

• Far too many founders think that Customer Discovery conversations take the place of background research. They want to be told everything via Discovery without doing the reading that makes discovery valuable. 
• People seem to forget that being a Lean Startup is a means to an end. The point is to be a big, profitable company. The minute you can STOP being a lean startup, do so. 

At Lumatic, we have the problem that we have to stop. A couple of city maps don’t get us where we need to go. We need at hundred or two in short order. Before real revenue. Fun Fun.

Image by betsyweber via Flickr