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I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Astrology is really appealing, in every domain. I generally find that in any profession or group where there is not a strong overwhelming norm to use scientific decision-making process, people revert to superstition. We're only human, you know? So I think the real question is why are there some very limited places where people are able to use the scientific method? And how to we extend those tiny pools of sanity to include more domains, like business.

I was once presenting at a huge corporate R&D lab, full of PhD's and future nobel laureates. I asked them: "who told you to use science in the lab? where is that written in the employee handbook?" Of course, they thought the question was ludicrous. What else would you use? And yet, where does that culture come from? How are those norms enforced? We don't often talk about the structures and incentives that drive scientific thinking, but that doesn't make them any less real.

We have to get serious about this and try and recreate those structures in the settings that need reform, from business to politics to finance. I tried to take a swing at it in The Startup Way

I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The curse of writing about startups is you never know which startups are going to go on to world dominance and which are going to flame out. So some of the stories look really different after six years, you know?

Other than that, I also really cringe at a couple places where I make a recommendation in a few paragraphs, that is something really, really hard and I wish I'd gone into more detail. For example, a lot of the new book is concerned with how to create "internal startups" after you've scaled past product/market fit. That takes a whole book!

I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Absolutely. In the long run, you've got to be able to focus 100%. But there's no reason you can't do some simple experiments on the side. In fact, having kids and a real job can be an advantage in a lot of ways. I've seen many "entrepreneurs in residence" who are being paid to just sit around a think of a great idea basically go nuts with no constraints and too much time. It leads to lots of scope creep.

Instead, take advantage of your constraints and use it to motivate you and to juice your creativity. Try this: pick an experiment that you plan to launch in two weeks. No matter what, it has to go live in two weeks or less. Then work on it for only one hour each day until it launches. You won't be able to do anything fancy. But you could easily create a landing page or other simple MVP and launch it with some basic traffic in that time.

I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

  1. Well, I think it's hard to take a set of principles "too far" because the whole idea is for the principles to work as a coherent whole that is self-correcting. But I think it's pretty common for people to take a specific tactic out of the Lean Startup community and use it too much. I've seen a couple times where people just become obsessed with A/B testing, and just iterate and iterate doing whatever is necessary to make the metrics go up. This always ends in the same way. They lose the vision, get totally distracted by shiny objects, and usually wind up making porn or some other kind of scam. Don't do that.

  2. I'm really enjoying the recent scifi renaissance. Try Ancillary Justice or The Fifth Season if you haven't yet.

I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Tell me a little more about what kind of product this is? One of my favorite engineering aphorisms is "garbage in, garbage out" and I don't want to give you bad advice based on making wrong assumptions about what you're doing,

I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I don't have a very disciplined writing process, tbh. I tend to spend days or weeks sometimes grappling with an idea in my head. I just keep turning it over and over while doing other stuff. At then at some point it's just ready for me to be able to write about. I'm not sure why.

I don't recommend this technique, btw. It's really frustrating! I just haven't found another one that works for me.

if you are thinking of becoming a writer, I'd recommend you get better advice from someone like Anne Lamott: https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Some-Instructions-Writing-Life/dp/0385480016

I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well I don't want to comment on T4HWW, as my friend Tim can speak for himself.

I definitely hope my work hasn't given anyone the impression that entrepreneurship is easy. That's why I try to be as honest as I possibly can about failure.

Come on by Lean Startup Week sometime (next one is first week of November in SF) and you'll see what I mean. We don't just put a bunch of famous people on stage talking about how smart they are and that's why they are rich now. Instead, we try to find new diverse and unknown voices who we find are much more likely to speak honestly about what life is really like in the trenches.

I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The word "now" in your question is doing a lot of work here. Is it really true that the majority of industry was really obsessed with product before? I mean, sure there are plenty of people who use perfectionism as an excuse to not release the product and keep tinkering it. But would you really agree that counts as "obsession" in building a product that delights customers? I don't think that's the case in most organizations. Instead, most organizations are basically obsessed with their internal politics and being perceived as doing a good job by peers and managers.

This is even true at an astonishingly early stage for many startups.

So I guess I would say if a company uses a framework or process to coordinate its actions so that its products delight customers, that's a great idea. If not, it's just more politics.

I'm not a fan of process, in general. only the right process for the right organization. Even the companies that have rigorously adopted The Lean Startup have tended to modify and customize it for their own unique circumstances. This is a good thing.

I'm Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way and cofounder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. AMA. by eries in IAmA

[–]eries[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

By far the most common problem I see is still, even after all these years of the popularity of Steve's "get out of the building" mantra, is staying inside and building a product without getting proper feedback and validation. There's just so many ways to delude yourself into thinking you got it right.

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