potential customers rejected his request repeatedly to invite their existing friends on IM on customer trial sessions.
He recalls his experience building IMVU add-ons for many existing IMs for literally months based on the assumption it will be easier for new customers to adapt to their product if it is offered as addon. The author provides many real-life stories to strengthen his point, and one of it came from his own during his time at IMVU (Instant Messaging Virtual Universe, a 3D avatar chat company) as CTO. This approach is called "Customer Development". And of course, this goal has a lot to do with the customer behavior, that's why all the methodology relies heavily on customer participation since day one. Any effort that does NOT bring the Startup closer to this goal is considered a waste. The main goal of establishing a business is to make it sustainable, where the rate of income it generates exceeds the cost to keep it running. The "Lean" is lean startup signifies the amount of effort for Startup to reach its destination. Take for example Google Wave, note that this my own personal example because I remember how my friends got amazed by how sophisticated the product was, in addition Eric (the author) made a talk in one of the Google TechTalk when one employee asked him if there any lesson learned from the Google Wave’s failure to take off. It doesn't matter much if the product is a state-of-art or something that we all thought people are craving on, in fact, we've seen many startup fails (and sometimes in spectacular manner) even though they answer to people's need. Under this definition, even big and established company can have in-house startup group given that they are trying to make a product (or enhancement of a product) with many unknowns.
The author first describes a Startup to be a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. The Lean Startup in summary tries to establish a novel framework to get Startup grows using scientific approach.
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