
Steve Blank: Vision versus Hallucination - Founders and Pivots - gghootch
http://steveblank.com/2012/08/27/vision-versus-hallucination-founders-and-pivots/
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revorad
_In searching for product/market fit (the right match between value
proposition and customer segment) the product should be the last part you
think of changing – not the first_

That is _shocking_. I'm glad Steve said it clearly in those words, because
I've certainly been believing the exact opposite.

And with that, I'm now more confused than ever by the whole customer
development and lean startup way of doing things.

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sblank
I'm trying to stop the needless and constant bad advice of "lets churn through
every possible feature without understanding the entire business model." Doing
so is a crutch. Tell me you understand your entire business model and that you
thought through the rest of the canvas. Then start iterating the product.

A startup think through all the business model will run rings around those who
simply think it's about features.

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SoftwareMaven
People will change the pieces they understand. That means marketers will
change the marketing, engineers will change the features, etc. If I don't
understand channels, it makes pivoting to a different channel strategy really
difficult.

I like the idea of there being an "order of operations" in what to consider
changing, and I like it being based on "what brings money in" and "what keeps
us from spending unnecessarily". Definitely something I'll put in my notebook!

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revorad
I think you hit the nail on the head. And that raises the question - is Steve
more keen on experimenting with the business model because he is more of a
business/management guy than an engineer?

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saraid216
Doesn't that presuppose Steve is "more of a business/management guy than an
engineer"?

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revorad
I'm assuming that based on his roles in his own startups.

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Quizz
With this discussion in mind, a concrete case study is "When should RIM have
pivoted?" When should they have invested most of their R&D into a developer
friendly ecosystem and committed to a well defined strategy like Samsung (a
hardware company), Google (ad platform company) or Apple (hardware and content
platform) company? I believe RIM is most similar to Apple, but would die a
slow death from hardware development costs without the volume support, so
should have pivoted and merged with NOKIA while both were strong to leverage
RIM's enterprise software expertise with NOKIA's hardware
development/manufacturing scale. The pivot occurs when you do the numbers and
realize that to master both hardware and software is a rare feat of skill not
worth embarking on unless you believe you can beat Apple at its own game.

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rosenjon
Great post. Thank you. I think it also speaks to the importance of
understanding the market for what you're building before you start. Just
because a piece of software solves a problem doesn't mean there is a market
for it. Some solutions don't translate into $'s.

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mindcrime
_Find a Brainstorm Buddy_ _Finally, I suggested that he find someone he
respects on his advisory board, who he was comfortable brainstorming with and
would tell him when he has a bad idea._

That's good stuff. I think I've been guilty of falling in love with my own
ideas at times. :-( I need to start doing more of this and leaning on our
advisors more.

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ChuckMcM
It is funny you would mention this, I've been on the advisory board for a
couple of startups and find the ones who do this, actually bounce things off
their advisers, are much more successful than the ones that don't. You brought
your advisers on board, perhaps you offered them equity, use them for more
than networking to other people!

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mgkimsal
I've acted as an informal advisor for a handful of "startups" (in the broadest
sense of the word), generally on the technical side of things, but I have
_some_ business success behind me (often more than the 'founders').

Now... this might just be me, but I get asked for input, I give it, with
rationalization/reasoning, and I get summarily ignored. Almost every single
time. Certainly on any issue of substance. As I say, it may be me, or it may
be the people I've chosen to give my time to. I think it's a mix of both,
but... they tend to only want their ideas validated, not disproven or shot
down. My answers in almost all cases are "it doesn't really matter what I say
- or you say - you need to try the idea out, and get feedback from the data
and customers (or non customers)". And I'm accused of not believing in an
idea, or not having faith in people, or being too negative, or whatever. It's
become dishearterning, as I generally wouldn't bother donating my time and
talents to parties that I didn't think were worthwhile or had merit in the
first place.

Additionally, while my successes have been modest, I've also got a wealth of
failures and errors in my past to draw on, and it's truly sad to watch some
people make the same mistakes I made 10 years ago. The difference is, I had no
mentors or people to guide me 10 years ago - I would have loved to have had
that sort of input to save me time, money and sanity. I guess some mistakes
you have to make for yourself, perhaps?

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mindcrime
Awesome, Mike, I'm totally trying to recruit you to the Fogbeam advisory
board, as of now. You know I'll listen to you! :-)

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mgkimsal
i'd be honored. ;)

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pjungwir
I had a startup partner who was like this. It was exhausting. The reason
a-pivot-a-week is not the same as a lean startup is because with such rapid
pivots there is no way your changes are based on _data_. It's not pivoting;
it's just churning.

Steve comes close to saying this, but I think it'd help to take all these
ideas and gush about them to someone outside the company. (He suggests an
advisor; I'd say a spouse or a friend.) Once you get it out of the system and
think about it for a few days, then talk about it with your co-
founders/employees.

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programminggeek
You know, pivoting is smart when you're doing the wrong thing, and it's dumb
when you're already on the right path, but the path you're on is long and
hard.

For example, if you're building yet another iOS Twitter client or instagram
clone, pivoting to something else might make sense now that the big
opportunities in that space are gone, but if you're building a new search
engine like Duck Duck Go, a pivot a year or two ago into something else would
have been a bad decision. The tricky part seems to be knowing when you are
pushing towards a big opportunity that is hard to break into or when you are
pushing towards a gigantic waste of time.

Pivoting when you're going nowhere is smart, pivoting when something gets hard
could be a huge mistake. This reminds me a bit of Seth Godin's ideas about
"the dip".

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adrianmn
And the best way to mitigate the risk of making a bad decision is to track the
right metrics and know your market.

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R_Edward
Halluc-in-ation.

#corrections

