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by jrodgers
5281 days ago
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I could have sworn that 37 Signals did this 'first' in that they popularized the idea of 'lean' or iterative product design around a SaaS model in 2004ish. It is the whole philosophy around the birth of Rails as I remember it. If you go way back into their blog archives it is likely there: http://37signals.com/svn I will give them 'first' because they built a framework around the idea of building fast and cheap. Because startups are hot (again) and trendy (again) people are just looking for 'the right way' to do it. The real secret is that it is really hard work and knowing that you don't know everything while holding true to your vision. |
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Paul Graham wrote many of them on his essays[1] (one example: Launching Too Early, from 18 Mistakes[2], is rephrased as iterate on Lean Startup), and so did 37 Signals (the core of the MVP concept is outlined on Half, not half assed[3]).
Lean (which is usually placed along with Agile methodologies) and startups' synergies were mentioned 4 years ago by infoQ (the same site where the article on this post is from)[4], which also made the connection between the works of pg, Jessica Livingstone and 37 Signals.
The metric and funnel anayslis (an important piece of the measure part of the build/measure/learn loop) come from 500 Startups head Dave McClure's recurring presentation Startup Metrics 4 Pirates (which nowadays borrows from Lean Startup ubiquitous language).
The Lean Startup does bring some new ideas to the table (innovation accounting for instance), but the most important part is that it outlines some really overlooked ideas (like using cohorts[6] as a way out of the Vanity Metrics[7] pit).
[1] http://paulgraham.com/articles.html
[2] http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
[3] http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch05_Half_Not_Half_Assed.ph...
[4] http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/02/agile-startups
[5] http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pir...
[6] http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/11/are-you-building-the-right-...
[7] http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/vanity-metrics/