The Lean Startup / Minimum Viable Product
Eric Ries · 2011
"Startups should build-measure-learn with a minimum viable product to find product-market fit before scaling."
A startup isn't a smaller version of a big company — it's an organization searching for a business model that doesn't exist yet, under extreme uncertainty. Because of that, the traditional approach of writing a detailed plan and executing it for years is dangerous: you're just executing a guess. Instead, Ries argues you should build the smallest possible version of your product (a Minimum Viable Product), put it in front of real customers immediately, measure what actually happens, and use that data to decide whether to persevere or change direction ('pivot'). Repeat that loop as fast as possible.
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You're Probably Too Early
"Founders are far more likely to fail from being too early — building the right idea before the infrastructure or market is ready — than from being too late, which means a founder's own sense of 'someone must already be doing this' is a poor signal to act on."