Quotes About Learning

Our goal in building products is to be able to run experiments that will help us learn how to build a sustainable business.

A pivot requires that we keep one foot rooted in what we've learned so far, while making a fundamental change in strategy in order to seek even greater validated learning. In

Startup success can be engineered by following the right process, which means it can be learned, which means it can be taught.

although we write the feedback loop as Build-Measure-Learn because the activities happen in that order, our planning really works in the reverse order: we figure out what we need to learn and then work backwards to see what product will work as an experiment to get that learning

As I can attest, anybody who fails in a startup can claim that he or she has learned a lot from the experience. They can tell a compelling story.

To facilitate learning, I have found it helpful to appoint a Five Whys master for each area in which the method is being used. This individual is tasked with being the moderator for each Five Whys meeting, making decisions about which prevention steps to take, and assigning the follow-up work from that meeting. The master must be senior enough to have the authority to ensure that those assignments get done

David faced the difficult challenge of deciding whether to pivot or persevere. This is one of the hardest decisions entrepreneurs face. The goal of creating learning milestones is not to make the decision easy; it is to make sure that there is relevant data in the room when it comes time to decide.

As was mentioned earlier, this is not the way the Lean Startup model works, because customers often don't know what they want. Our goal in building products is to be able to run experiments that will help us learn how to build a sustainable business. Thus, the right way to think about the product development process in a Lean Startup is that it is responding to pull requests in the form of experiments that need to be run.

Compared to a lot of startups, the Grockit team had a huge advantage: they were tremendously disciplined. A disciplined team may apply the wrong methodology but can shift gears quickly once it discovers its error. Most important, a disciplined team can experiment with its own working style and draw meaningful conclusions.

All this time, David was learning and gaining feedback from his potential customers, but he was in an unsustainable situation. You can't pay staff with what you've learned,

They exist to learn how to build a sustainable business. This learning can be validated scientifically by running frequent experiments that allow entrepreneurs to test each element of their vision.

Startups have to focus on the big experiments that lead to validated learning.

value in a startup is not the creation of stuff, but rather validated learning about how to build a sustainable business.

Every setback is an opportunity for learning.

Yet if the fundamental goal of entrepreneurship is to engage in organization building under conditions of extreme uncertainty, its most vital function is learning. We must learn the truth about which elements of our strategy are working to realize our vision and which are just crazy. We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want. We must discover whether we are on a path that will lead to growing a sustainable business.

what it does is develop entrepreneurs, because when you have only one test, you don't have entrepreneurs, you have politicians, because you have to sell. Out of a hundred good ideas, you've got to sell your idea. So you build up a society of politicians and salespeople. When you have five hundred tests you're running, then everybody's ideas can run. And then you create entrepreneurs who run and learn and can retest and relearn as opposed to a society of politicians.

Departments too often spend their energy learning how to use data to get what they want rather than as genuine feedback to guide their future actions.

Validated learning is the process of demonstrating empirically that a team has discovered valuable truths about a startup's present and future business prospects.

Contrary to traditional product development, which usually involves a long, thoughtful incubation period and strives for product perfection, the goal of the MVP is to begin the process of learning, not end it. Unlike a prototype or concept test, an MVP is designed not just to answer product design or technical questions. Its goal is to test fundamental business hypotheses.

We are able to learn, we are innately creative, and we have a remarkable ability to see the signal in the noise.

The solution to this dilemma is a commitment to iteration. You have to commit to a locked-in agreement—ahead of time—that no matter what comes of testing the MVP, you will not give up hope. Successful entrepreneurs do not give up at the first sign of trouble, nor do they persevere the plane right into the ground. Instead, they possess a unique combination of perseverance and flexibility. The MVP is just the first step on a journey of learning. Down

Cuando vaya a crear su propio producto mínimo viable, siga esta simple regla: elimine cualquier elemento, proceso o esfuerzo que no contribuya directamente al aprendizaje que está buscando.

Yes, MVPs sometimes are perceived as low-quality by customers. If so, we should use this as an opportunity to learn what attributes customers care about. This is infinitely better than mere speculation or whiteboard strategizing, because it provides a solid empirical foundation on which to build future products.

The Five Whys ties the rate of progress to learning, not just execution. Startup teams should go through the Five Whys whenever they encounter any kind of failure, including technical faults, failures to achieve business results, or unexpected changes in customer behavior.