This is a result of the whole lean movement. Validate your idea with customer feedback before you spend a bunch of money. Yes it means things will be a little smoke and mirrors to begin with but that doesn't mean the founders are not capable of delivering what is being proposed.
They may have thought through all of your questions but decided not to have firm answers right now in order to validate the idea, and not the technology.
And therein lies the problem with the whole lean movement. You can never truly invalidate an idea. You can only invalidate your 'lean' implementation of an idea which may or may not have been the actual minimal viable product. It's quite possible the implementation you executed is too minimal. In this case, I think that's exactly the case. The founders have an interesting idea that would appeal to a good chunk of HN readers but we're all put off by just how minimal the implementation is. Unless the founders are reading this thread, they'd easily be duped into believing they invalidated their idea based on their low conversion rate.
This isn't really the lean process though. Lean implies you've done proper research prior to releasing a product. If people are umcomfortable with signing up then this isn't an MVP and not indicative of how the lean process works.
My point is that no matter what you do, you will never be able to invalidate an idea. All you can ever do is invalidate one exact execution of the idea. Perhaps your idea is great but you left out the one killer feature. Or perhaps it's feature perfect but the design is just not right. Or perhaps the implementation is perfect but you didn't market it correctly. Research done prior to launch can certainly be helpful but still doesn't change the fact that you cannot invalidate an idea.
The problem I have with the lean startup movement is how easily it is to get derailed before you ever even begin. For example, the lean startup movement suggests an initial qualitative approach to testing your assumptions, achieved by talking to a small number of people in your target market. But that assumes you know who your target market will be, that you know who the early adopters in that market will be, and that you're asking the right questions. If you get any of those wrong, poof! You'll believe your assumption wrong and your idea invalidated even those it hasn't been.
The founders of Jarvis may have done their homework prior to releasing a product. They may have concluded that there was a real pain point that their service could solve. But what research should they have done to realize that their target market wouldn't be interested unless they had a legal page? Or demonstrations? The problem with trying to go with the absolute MVP is that it's way too easy to go too minimal.
The lean startup methodology will work best for ideas that solve massive pain points. With a massive pain point, it won't matter if you're talking to someone that is normally an early adopter or someone that normally trails behind. It won't matter if you have a poor design, a minimal feature set, and no legal page. But for anything else, it's just entirely too easy for your target market to dismiss you and for you to summarily dismiss your idea.
I've often thought the same. Execution is the hard part, especially with regard to conversions. It is really tough to get right, even with a mature product. And, given the sea of noise that invades everyone's lives, trying to be heard with a product presentation that is purposely subpar seems unrealistic.
So, one problem with lean is that you're actually testing two variables: the idea and the execution. When people don't convert, is it the idea, the copy, the design, something else? It may be that you just need to iterate on your copy/conversion funnel, etc. a dozen times. But, lean de-emphasizes the implementation; encouraging you to instead view the feedback as primarily relevant to your idea, and so move on in the face of low conversions.
All you can ever do is invalidate one exact execution of the idea.
Absolutely agree with you and I wish the folks that teach lean would emphasize this more.
For every successful company, there are probably multiple teams that tried to test the same general idea only to conclude that it won't work.
Overall, I think lean start up movement does a great job of taking credit when it works out while not delving enough into all the people who gave up because the idea didn't validate itself according to the lean process...and yet another company with a similar idea made it work.
Certainly it must be true that encouraging people to belt out a "minimum viable product" results in the launch of something half-baked and unviable at least slightly more often than if the advice hadn't been taken. That doesn't invalidate the lean startup concept, it just illustrates a potential tradeoff... and there's always a tradeoff.
Comments
This is a result of the whole lean movement. Validate your idea with customer feedback before you spend a bunch of money. Yes it means things will be a little smoke and mirrors to begin with but that doesn't mean the founders are not capable of delivering what is being proposed.
They may have thought through all of your questions but decided not to have firm answers right now in order to validate the idea, and not the technology.
And therein lies the problem with the whole lean movement. You can never truly invalidate an idea. You can only invalidate your 'lean' implementation of an idea which may or may not have been the actual minimal viable product. It's quite possible the implementation you executed is too minimal. In this case, I think that's exactly the case. The founders have an interesting idea that would appeal to a good chunk of HN readers but we're all put off by just how minimal the implementation is. Unless the founders are reading this thread, they'd easily be duped into believing they invalidated their idea based on their low conversion rate.
This isn't really the lean process though. Lean implies you've done proper research prior to releasing a product. If people are umcomfortable with signing up then this isn't an MVP and not indicative of how the lean process works.
My point is that no matter what you do, you will never be able to invalidate an idea. All you can ever do is invalidate one exact execution of the idea. Perhaps your idea is great but you left out the one killer feature. Or perhaps it's feature perfect but the design is just not right. Or perhaps the implementation is perfect but you didn't market it correctly. Research done prior to launch can certainly be helpful but still doesn't change the fact that you cannot invalidate an idea.
The problem I have with the lean startup movement is how easily it is to get derailed before you ever even begin. For example, the lean startup movement suggests an initial qualitative approach to testing your assumptions, achieved by talking to a small number of people in your target market. But that assumes you know who your target market will be, that you know who the early adopters in that market will be, and that you're asking the right questions. If you get any of those wrong, poof! You'll believe your assumption wrong and your idea invalidated even those it hasn't been.
The founders of Jarvis may have done their homework prior to releasing a product. They may have concluded that there was a real pain point that their service could solve. But what research should they have done to realize that their target market wouldn't be interested unless they had a legal page? Or demonstrations? The problem with trying to go with the absolute MVP is that it's way too easy to go too minimal.
The lean startup methodology will work best for ideas that solve massive pain points. With a massive pain point, it won't matter if you're talking to someone that is normally an early adopter or someone that normally trails behind. It won't matter if you have a poor design, a minimal feature set, and no legal page. But for anything else, it's just entirely too easy for your target market to dismiss you and for you to summarily dismiss your idea.
I've often thought the same. Execution is the hard part, especially with regard to conversions. It is really tough to get right, even with a mature product. And, given the sea of noise that invades everyone's lives, trying to be heard with a product presentation that is purposely subpar seems unrealistic.
So, one problem with lean is that you're actually testing two variables: the idea and the execution. When people don't convert, is it the idea, the copy, the design, something else? It may be that you just need to iterate on your copy/conversion funnel, etc. a dozen times. But, lean de-emphasizes the implementation; encouraging you to instead view the feedback as primarily relevant to your idea, and so move on in the face of low conversions.
All you can ever do is invalidate one exact execution of the idea.
Absolutely agree with you and I wish the folks that teach lean would emphasize this more.
For every successful company, there are probably multiple teams that tried to test the same general idea only to conclude that it won't work.
Overall, I think lean start up movement does a great job of taking credit when it works out while not delving enough into all the people who gave up because the idea didn't validate itself according to the lean process...and yet another company with a similar idea made it work.
That's a bit of a "no true scotsman", isn't it?
Certainly it must be true that encouraging people to belt out a "minimum viable product" results in the launch of something half-baked and unviable at least slightly more often than if the advice hadn't been taken. That doesn't invalidate the lean startup concept, it just illustrates a potential tradeoff... and there's always a tradeoff.
I'm remembering this for the next question my boss asks me...