The Startup Checklist

6Build a Minimum Viable Product and Validate Your Plan with Customers

By this point, the word “lean” has been used so frequently and in so many contexts that you may be forgiven for thinking that it is meaningless. It is actually quite the opposite. The reason the term—and the thinking that it represents—has swept the startup world is that it makes fundamental sense. Originally used to describe innovative manufacturing practices at Toyota in the 1980s, the approach was developed for the startup world by Steve Blank and brought to popular attention by Eric Ries in his best-selling book^* and subsequent series.The core philosophy of the Lean Methodology boils down to a loop that cycles through three steps:

1. Build.
2. Measure.
3. Learn.

Instead of spending months or years thinking and planning and writing about a business (that's what “wantrepreneurs” do), the essence of the Lean Startup Methodology is to start by just getting off your seat and doing something! Based on the initial modeling that you've done with the Business Model Canvas or the lean business plan, you'll come up with a testable hypothesis for a particular product designed for a particular market. You'll get something into the real world (even if it's only something that looks like your product) and see how people react to it. You'll measure what happens, adjust your approach, and go back into the market. With a few cycles of this, you will have figured out the perfect fit . . . at which point, you'll be ready to scale. ...