Pretty controversial take I have to say! I know a few founders who would read this and think: great, let's dive back into the editor, we've got (blind) conviction. I've been on the other side though, experimenting our heads off where in the end we lost all conviction. I now as a structure like to work with experiment cycles because it helps to focus on one thing at the time, and instead of build blindly, you're focussing more on the outcome you want to achieve with it (and how to do that in the smallest way). If you know as much as you do about startups, your conviction isn't blind and probably pretty informed and customer centric.
Pretty controversial take I have to say! I know a few founders who would read this and think: great, let's dive back into the editor, we've got (blind) conviction. I've been on the other side though, experimenting our heads off where in the end we lost all conviction. I now as a structure like to work with experiment cycles because it helps to focus on one thing at the time, and instead of build blindly, you're focussing more on the outcome you want to achieve with it (and how to do that in the smallest way). If you know as much as you do about startups, your conviction isn't blind and probably pretty informed and customer centric.
"Since The Lean Startup came out, founders have LARPed as scientists."
Epic first line... and great post!!
Some very salient leadership research:
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0024630119301505
"Lean startup and the business model: Experimentation revisited"
Long Range Planning 53 (2020) 101889
The take-away is lean startup leads to incremental innovation not disruption or demand.