Since the begin, focus on experimentation and iterative design to make available “minimum viable products” and their use to gather customers’ feedback, and based your decision to “pivots” from analytics. Learn every day for every interaction with users and adapt to meet what they are saying that matters (not boring stuff apply an innovation accounting). On May 2013, HBR magazine featured a cover article: “Why the lean start-up changes everything” by Steve Blank. The article offers an overview of lean start-up techniques and how they ignite a new entrepreneurial economy. By bashing old thinking that mandates ventures’ founders to have a polished business plan, which was usually written in isolation, and to operate their new venture in a “stealth” mode, i.e., they should only launch a product after years of development, with little if any customer input! Then, they should learn the truth in a hard way – their “customers” don’t want or need most of its product’s features. Unlearn … to learn again.

“Everybody has a plan until they got punched in the mouth” – Mike Tyson.

Forget about a business plan. Set up a discovery planning.
Try to forecast unknowns is a waste-of-time. Go for validated learning.
Prefer failing fast and continuing improvement of the initial ideas from revised minimum viable products.
Rethink to Win?

A start-up looks for a repeatable and scalable business model, and not for executing a model as a large corporation do. Accept on day one that you have a set of untested hypnoses – and look for the answer to that single question: How my venture creates value for the customers and for itself? Test, test, and test your hypotheses with real customers, as Steve Blank proposed a “Get out of the building” approach. Then go into the Build-Measure-Learn loops fast and multiple times, and listen to your customers. The discovery is by testing your hypnoses and building a “minimum viable product.” Validate customers’ interest in your solution early on in the process of product innovation. Pivot and revised strategy as required. Create a customer base by raising your marketing and sales investments. Build a sustainable company for executing the model. Build software that matters. It starts with leaving the old thinking about operating in the stealth mode and orchestrated Alfa, Beta tests. Product innovation unleashes openness. Large companies, including GE, Intuit, and Qualcomm are already starting to implement the lean start-up processes and tools. The National Science Foundation created a lean start-up curriculum for scientists, called the Innovation Corps. These thriving enterprises have understood that: “Using lean methods across a product portfolio will result in fewer failures than using traditional methods.