I personally find Steve Blank has some interesting things to say and Eric Ries not so much, comparitively. The latter <i>seems</i> to be trying to turn a simple idea (combine agile engineering practices with Steve Blank's "customer discovery/validation" idea") into a consultingware "movement" with kool-aid conferences and such, just as with all business fads. The jury is still out on the eventual success of such efforts.<p>The nearest analogy is the whole "Agile" movement. There was a useful/interesting kernel of ideas but it was soon overrun by scammy consultants (e.g the hwle "Scrum Master" certification scam). I suspect "Lean Startups" are on the same path.<p>I do think Mr.Ries has some (mildly) interesting things to say, but (and this is probably blasphemy for at least a subset of HN readers) my "marketing bullshit" filter <i>is</i> on at high when I read or listen to him these days. I believe that the whole "lean startup" movement is in its <i>early</i> stages of being overrrun by scamsters so there are still interesting ideas there.<p>So yes, (imo) at least some part of the "Lean Startup" (the phrase is copyrighted by Mr Ries btw!) stuff <i>is</i> marketing BS. As always you as the consumer of such fads have to use your intelligence to discard the marketing fluff and find the useful core. And every fad generally has a (sometimes tiny) useful core.<p>Caveat Emptor. Useful idea, especially as it applies to methodology salesmen, irrespective of whether said methodology applies to sw dev (agile) or building/running a business ("lean startup").
The author is lacking an understanding of business jargon. Very little jargon was vacuous when coined. It is the endless repetition by the uninformed that renders it meaningless.<p>Ries is trying to change the way people think about startups, and as a part of that effort he is consciously promoting neologisms that capture the principles of the lean startup. I like those principles, I understand that he wants to create language to concisely express those principles to help grow awareness of his philosophy.<p>I think "Tipping Point"--which the author cites as true "Marketing Bullshit"--is a good analogy. The general public (people who hadn't read <i>Complexity</i> or <i>Chaos</i>) didn't understand complexity before Gladwell, and so the phrase "Tipping Point" was coined and used to capture the principle. It worked: pretty much everyone understands it now. It's just that the term "Tipping Point" is now slightly irritating to anyone who "got it" a long time ago, and it has been (predictably) misused enough to place it in the Business Jargon Pantheon.<p>That's how business jargon works. Just consult your Buzzword Bingo scorecard for examples.
I'm admittedly short on my knowledge of this newfangled "lean startup" notion. But, it sounds to me like the fundamental principle is "lazy product evaluation." Ie, instead of building anything up-front, go out, find out what people want, and build <i>that</i>, MVP, reacting to markets that you know, provably, to already exist.<p>At the risk of getting told I don't "get it", this sounds like a great way to build a very successful but horribly boring startup.
Here's a snippet from a HN submission currently ranking about as well as the Lean post:<p>"Introducing, Braintrust, my bootstrapped lean startup
. . . Braintrust is hosted in the cloud, works in real-time, and provided as a SaaS offering."