All the standard business knowledge and tech knowledge that is common knowledge today had not yet been figured out.
You're right about that. The lean startup, "there's no truth in the office", Minimum Viable Product concepts just weren't a thing back then, they would have saved one of the companies I worked for if the founders had known and accepted them. Instead they spent way too much time in stealth mode, hired a corporate lawyer to get them a bogus patent, were way too worried about competitors instead of ever getting traction for their idea, spent too much time debating details of the website, and who would pay what for precisely what sort of service, and too much upfront engineering to handle a huge demand which didn't materialize due to sabotage by the last round of investors who were found in desperation half a year before launch.
That any discussion of your potential customers "inside" the office, purely between people in your company, is highly to entirely speculative. You've got to get "out" of the office and sell your product, or not, to know. Hence the emphasis on having a Minimum Viable Product as soon as possible to know if there's real demand for it, and at what price.
Comments
You're right about that. The lean startup, "there's no truth in the office", Minimum Viable Product concepts just weren't a thing back then, they would have saved one of the companies I worked for if the founders had known and accepted them. Instead they spent way too much time in stealth mode, hired a corporate lawyer to get them a bogus patent, were way too worried about competitors instead of ever getting traction for their idea, spent too much time debating details of the website, and who would pay what for precisely what sort of service, and too much upfront engineering to handle a huge demand which didn't materialize due to sabotage by the last round of investors who were found in desperation half a year before launch.
What is "there's no truth in the office"?
That any discussion of your potential customers "inside" the office, purely between people in your company, is highly to entirely speculative. You've got to get "out" of the office and sell your product, or not, to know. Hence the emphasis on having a Minimum Viable Product as soon as possible to know if there's real demand for it, and at what price.