¿Cuáles son los beneficios y desventajas del enfoque lean startup para el desarrollo de productos?

When it comes to developing products, the lean startup approach has many advantages. This methodology places an emphasis on continuous improvement through experimentation, feedback from customers, and iterative learning, all of which help startups test their hypotheses and make informed decisions. The theory behind this method is backed up by books like Eric Ries' "The Lean Startup" and studies on lean methodologies in entrepreneurship and innovation. Lean startup approach helped me iterate our product design and processes by first creating a minimum viable product (MVP) and then listening to customers, which maximized efficiency, minimized waste, produced high-quality goods, shortened time-to-market, and increased customer satisfaction.

Lean Startup is an approach to starting (developing) a business evangelized by Eric Ries and popularized in his book: Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. It is based on the work of Steve Blank. It’s a countermovement to the linear startup (product development) model that guesses big, invests big, and goes to market with unvalidated assumptions. In opposition, Lean Startup advocates an iterative (agile and experimental) approach to starting a business (product development) where assumptions (hypotheses) are tested and updated based on what is learned, subsequently minimizing the risk of failure.

In most cases there are no drawbacks, the issues stated in this article are simply difficulties. In practice, there are drawbacks when it comes to truly revolutionary products: 1) Your customers cannot comprehend what you are offering before seeing an actual working prototype, e.g. think of the first home computers, or of the internet or of SONY's walkman. 2) Further, the lean startup methodology does not work very well with H/W products. Developing a H/W product is a rather slow and expensive process, you cannot afford to keep re-spinning the design until your customers are happy. 3) Finally, your target customers will not always tell you the whole truth, either because they are too polite or because they don't know any better.

A few drawbacks or considerations for Lean Startup methodology: 1) Software-focus. The methods and case studies are derived from and largely for software development. The lessons can translate to hardware, but with modifications. For example, hardware is often very hard to launch to consumers as an MVP (minimum viable product). However, the core message of running real experiments for “validated learning” through a build-measure-learn feedback loop should be employed in ways such as “concierge” or “Wizard of Oz” tests. 2) Misunderstandings. As with any wildly popularized ideas, sometimes they become watered down and misused. The MVP concept for example simply means the fastest path to learning, not launching a bad product quickly.

The AI-generated drawbacks regarding Lean Startup are not drawbacks. Generating, developing, and running experiments (MVPs) is challenging (hard). Starting a business is hard. It’s a gamble. So the real question is, what is the alternative? The linear model where you make a large upfront investment and go to market with unvalidated assumptions? Which is the more prudent choice? Experimentation is the more prudent choice, especially when the transaction costs for running an experiment are low.

My opinion is simply better focus! It requires resourcefulness and ingenuity as options are limited. Likewise you may hit a “Y” in the road and if the project needs to veer to the right and vetting costs more, sales will determine if benefits outweigh the costs.

Software design can use stated approach but hardware is very different situation. Customer acceptance of a "NEW A CONCEPT" is difficult. Most don't understand concepts, or will require significant development and scale before taking risks. Invention of FIRE does not immediately mean acceptance. Why and where would it be used? For good or evil, weapon or protection, lighting or destruction, etc... New product introduction must not deviate to greatly from ACCEPTED NORM or risk slow market acceptance. Take www.DUTElectronics.com product approach as an example. CHEAPER, FASTER BETTER... is not acceptable if Customer doesn't understand what or how to use it.

The 3 most important things in starting projects or business is 1. Cash flow, 2. Cash flow. 3. Cash flow. It’s important to have thought through business and marketing issues to give confidence your efforts will be worth the efforts…. It’s hard to make ideas fruitful. It’s exponentially harder the deeper the debt hole is to begin with…. Good luck!