Fear of the False Negative

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and for people that are new to Lean Startup but actually “get it,” I don’t see a lot of false negatives. I do see some people pivoting too drastically, so the issue is keeping in mind what an experiment actually invalidates and where the potential is that your experiment is flawed.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and for people that are new to Lean Startup but actually “get it,” I don’t see a lot of false negatives. I do see some people pivoting too drastically, so the issue is keeping in mind what an experiment actually invalidates and where the potential is that your experiment is flawed.

yes it’s a blurry area. PV wrote about false negatives a while back and Sean Murphy wrote that he thought people were quitting too early if their ideas weren’t instant success. I get that. This isn’t about being flaky. But the failure rates of startups imply that if you’re going to put all that blood sweat and money into something, it should be something pretty great (whether a big business or a wonderful indie play). Look around and tell me you don’t think there’s a lot of stuff out there that hasn’t met the bar. There still a lot of wasted energy in startupland. Good lessons being learned by the participants, no doubt — I’ve learned a huge amount from every startup I’ve been involved in whether success or failure — but is that enough?

Agree with the sentiment here, though I think failing slowly and painfully has as much to teach as “failing fast”, if not more. u00a0It just hurts a lot. u00a0But I think it’s the human condition to learn only by suffering. u00a0(Success isn’t that great a teacher, it just makes us overconfident and arrogant, due to false attribution errors, etc.).nnI suspect the deep, internalized learning can’t be had any other way than plowing ahead in misery, and then reflecting back after the worst is over. u00a0Advice, even good advice, is mostly wasted on the inexperienced, since there’s not enough context to know whether to follow it or not.nnE.g: Fail fast, but don’t flake. u00a0Pivot and iterate, but don’t change your idea too much. u00a0Go big, but start small. u00a0Raise money, but only when you don’t really need it. u00a0Perservere, but not too long. u00a0Follow your passion, but don’t get caught up in it.nnThere’s truth in all of those, but to the inexperienced, it just sounds like a collection of oxymorons. u00a0And they are, until you’ve actually had the experience that makes one or more of those resonate.nnOn the positive side, I do think Lean Startup/Cust dev approaches help a lot with promoting measurement of the right things (versus vanity metrics), and some level of accountability that makes it hard to “stay the course” when things aren’t getting any better. u00a0nnBut it still takes a pretty remarkable degree of intellectual honesty to apply correctly, in my opinion.

agree with your thoughtful comment Dave.u00a0It’s also hard how startup life forces a founder to almost be schizophrenic. You often need to be externally super-confident in your vision and how things are going, and yet brutally honest and critical in your internal thinking and actions.nnI’ll admit that this post is more me editorializing something that has been on my mind for a little while, rather than tactical advice. Others might worry about quitting too soon, but I’m definitely getting more ruthless as I get older because my runway to get a startup off the ground is more limited.u00a0nnThere is a dangerous “no man’s land” in startups where you are getting a fair amount of success, but not setting the world on fire. It’s a dangerous place. It’s quite a challenge to guess whether your blocking factor is your exact formula or your underlying, foundational vision.

agree with your thoughtful comment Dave.u00a0It’s also hard how startup life forces a founder to almost be schizophrenic. You often need to be externally super-confident in your vision and how things are going, and yet brutally honest and critical in your internal thinking and actions.nnI’ll admit that this post is more me editorializing something that has been on my mind for a little while, rather than tactical advice. Others might worry about quitting too soon, but I’m definitely getting more ruthless as I get older because my runway to get a startup off the ground is more limited.u00a0nnThere is a dangerous “no man’s land” in startups where you are getting a fair amount of success, but not setting the world on fire. It’s a dangerous place. It’s quite a challenge to guess whether your blocking factor is your exact formula or your underlying, foundational vision.

Yes, the “Valley of Mediocrity” is a sucky place to be too u00a0And since I’m getting older too, I totally understand (and support) the “Don’t waste your limited time” mantra. u00a0We only get so much time.nnThe only way to stay sane (for me at least), is to reframe “wasted time” as “life experience”. u00a0It’s cold comfort, but as painful as failure or mediocrity can be, those experiences tend to be the preconditions for eventual success.nnThe only wasted time then, is time spent NOT moving forward, but spinning endlessly in trying to predict the unpredictable. u00a0There is no formula for guaranteed success, but the formula for guaranteed failure is easy – never start anything.nnOK, that last sentence sounded a little like “Poor Richard’s Alamanac”, sorry n

I think you and I would have fun meeting over a cup of coffee one dayn