Intentful Startup Origination
tl;dr: If you develop a key product insight then don’t let the lean startup factory let you give up on the long-term vision. Use it for post-origination phase, not at the inception phase. After all, you don’t ask the navigation app for your destination based on traffic, you tell it.
These are my rough notes from a Twitter thread which ruffled a few feathers
Upcoming tech IPOs have one thing in common: none of these originated from “lean startup”.
They were deliberate efforts, toiling away in obscurity for several years and then launching with well-formed products focused on design and user experience.
LYFT, PINT, UBER, SLAK, ABNB
These were intentful startups. Once they developed a north star, a core belief, that didn’t change, even though the approach did. These entrepreneurs had insight and willed their products into existence contrary to Lean Startup principles => can’t attribute and confuse their subsequent lean, iterative and customer-focused growth to it.
They told their navigation app where they were going, and then kept at it, instead of letting the app discover their destination based on data.
For example — for Airbnb at their 2nd, SXSW launch they only got 1 external customer. Per Lean Startup ideology => hey do something else. They didn’t, made product better. Then at their 3rd, DNC convention launch — they got some traffic but then it died out again and they were at rock bottom. Again, if they had followed Lean Startup then it would have implied hey do something else. They didn’t; applied to YC with the same idea and “just kept launching” (from the book “The Airbnb Story”).
Another great read: “The Upstarts” by Brad Stone, especially Chapter 3: The Nonstarters
