Entrepreneurship Is Management

A startup is an institution, not just a product, so it requires management, a new kind of management specifically geared to its context. This context is one of extreme uncertainty. Startups are human institutions designed to learn whether a product or service serve a market or, in fact, whether the market exists at all.

Traditional product development is about trying to create a solution to a known problem. By contrast, most startups have is they are trying to create a solution to an unknown problem. You may not know whether customers have a particular problem, or how many. You may observe a problem but not know how much customers are willing to pay for you to solve it, or whether your solution will be worth ceasing to do whatever it is they do now to address the problem. You may think you know the answers to all of these questions and be completely wrong.

The Lean Startup methodology addresses these unknowns by proposing a set of management principles that seek to test assumptions and eliminate unknowns. By talking to customers early and often we can eliminate uncertainty about their problem. By building simple products quickly and cheaply and attempting to sell them to customers we can learn what they will pay for and how much. By measuring the effect of our work on our ability to address customer needs we can assess our own progress and determine whether our business is viable.