ERIC RIES: PROTO INFLUENCER

Eric Ries — Author of “The Lean Startup”

Search the internet for the “lean startup” and Eric Ries’ influence is undeniable. Variations on his BUILD — MEASURE — LEARN mantra is reproduced in YOUTUBE™ videos and websites with promising names like:

INVESTOPEDIA

MINDTOOLS

CLEVERISM

These concepts are taught in graduate schools at universities around the world and translated into countless other languages.

But let’s look at Mr. Ries’ career and how these ideas evolved.

According to WIKIPEDIA:

After graduating, Ries moved to Silicon Valley in 2001 as a software engineer with There, Inc. He worked with the firm until the 2003 launch of its web-based 3D Virtual World product, There.com. The company soon failed.
In 2004, Ries left to join one of the founders of There.com, Will Harvey in co-founding IMVU Inc., a social network. IMVU investor Steve Blank insisted that IMVU executives audit Blank’s class on entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley.

It seems to me at least, that Eric Ries re-packaged and popularized Steve Blank’s methodologies. Nothing wrong with that, I guess. Except that the LEAN STARTUP movement’s name is misleading.

In a recent 2-minute video Steve Blank warns us that “a startup’s chances of success are infinitesimally small”. Mr. Blank is associated with the BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS and VALUE PROPOSITION DESIGN. These are fascinating tools — but are they designed for startups?

STRATEGYZER®offers online training and visual tools to help the students learn both of these methodologies.

But the examples cited by them are TESLA and GOOGLE.

Strategyzer illustrates VALUE PROPOSITION DESIGN using Tesla

Strategyzer uses GOOGLE to illustrate BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

So, if a startup’s chance of success are really “infinitesimally small”, why is everyone jumping on the bandwagon to train startups in LEAN METHODOLOGIES?

There is some potential value in these visual planning tools for launching new products. However it might be more appropriate to call the approach LEAN PRODUCT LAUNCH. (Aligns well with the origins in ‘LEAN MANUFACTURING’)

New companies with limited resources may be better to use a different strategy. New research is telling us that founders of successful ‘startups’ are much older and more experienced than our business press and ‘influencers’ would have us believe.

Often the best strategy for a startup is to ‘cut their teeth’ providing services to other companies.

There are said to be 2 different motivations for entrepreneurs:

1. Necessity

2. Opportunity

RIES’ BUILD MEASURE LEARN concept on MINDTOOLS Website

Unless your company is well funded to begin with, management is probably better to build their resources first, before pivoting to take advantage of an opportunity. The experience gained in surviving in the service business, will likely improve your ability to recognize opportunity when you see it.