[URSpider94]

I've been sitting here for 10 minutes or so trying to find the right way to critique not just the article, but also the tone of the discussions here. I think the best thing that I can say is that this experiment flies in the face of everything that pg, Steve Blank and the other leaders of Lean Startup methodology are teaching.

If the customer here is a member of the "urban poor" (or what some commenters have decided to call "bums"), then I'd suggest that we start with some customer research. Do the jobless urban poor want to stand at a terminal in the street and perform menial tasks for spare change? Would this solve real problems for them on a daily basis? What happens when it's cold and snowy out? How many of them know how to use a computer, or read?

Buying into this concept as a way to solve urban poverty is no different than some Marketing VP sitting in her 50th floor corner office, thinking that she knows what her customers want from her company's web site without ever asking them. Before you start throwing out solutions to urban poverty, you might want to at least talk to one or two of the people whose problems you are trying to solve.

[pron]

Finally, some humanity here. Although I see that you've chosen to disguise it in a way "entrepreneurs" would understand. Market research? Alright :)

As long it makes some people think what it's like to grow up poor. Me, I would suggest learning some history and philosophy before the monumental works of the "Lean Startup methodology".

[jessedhillon]

> ... then I'd suggest that we start with some customer research. Do the jobless urban poor want to stand at a terminal in the street and perform menial tasks for spare change?

In SV it's very popular to assume that people are poor because they don't want to work. To the question of what poor people would want to do, the answer is very often "who cares what they want, they're poor!" It's not this blatant -- often it's couched in statements like the ones you see here that assume that people have chosen poverty -- but that's the basic sentiment.

> Buying into this concept as a way to solve urban poverty is no different than some Marketing VP sitting in her 50th floor corner office...

Well, this is at least consistent. If you think that people have merely chosen to be poor, then you simply need to persuade them to make a different choice.

If one acknowledges that they don't know much about the lives of poor people, they should do what they would with any other domain where they lack experience -- find a domain expert. IMO, the best way to start would be to find those members of the urban poor demographic who have the intelligence and the motivation, but not the skills, to solve their own problems. Then, you can help them solve those problems.

[yummyfajitas]

In SV it's very popular to assume that people are poor because they don't want to work.

This is more or less true. Go look up labor force participation rates of the poor - most poor adults don't have a job, and aren't looking for one.

[Drbble]

Why do you think that looking is the same as wanting?

[fredsters_s]

> I think the best thing that I can say is that this experiment flies in the face of everything that pg, Steve Blank and the other leaders of Lean Startup methodology are teaching

The OP is advocating the installation of a terminal to see if the 'urban poor' use it. That sounds pretty lean to me.