
Why The ‘Fail Fast’ Mantra Needs to Fail - wheels
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/03/11/the-fail-fast-mantra-needs-to-fail/
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ThomPete
Fail Fast is a welcome change from the illusions of 3 year business plans that
have been roaming businesses the last 10 years. That doesn't mean, don't
think, don't do your research It doesn't mean, don't have a business plan
either.

What "fail fast" means is: don't talk about where you are going to be next
year, you don't know. Talk about where you are going to be next week and make
sure to measure if you in fact are where you want to be that following week.

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freshfunk
I've always heard of fail fast in the sense that Eric Ries and Steve Blank
talk about it: Get your product in front of customers as soon as possible.
Iterate.

Don't hole up and build your grand ideas for 1 year before anybody sees it and
gives you feedback because you're afraid to fail.. fast.

But Suster seems to be talking about a different things. It's like corporate
types taking a product development methodology and applying it to running a
company. That's frightening!

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ThomPete
Exactly.

As I commented on his blog.

There is a big difference between planning in an established market such as
toothpaste or shipping and then in a disruptive market.

And even in the established markets you never really know what awaits you the
coming month.

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leelin
I'm confused by the angry tone. I thought investors are paying entrepreneurs
to give it their all and earnestly take big calculated risks. Both the
founders and investors are buying an out-the-money call option on success, so
maximizing volatility seems ideal?

Would investors rather have a 1% chance of Google or a 70% chance of steady
single digit returns (and total loss otherwise)?

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ryanhuff
One of the points is that you often need to adjust (sometimes significantly)
before you've given the business a chance to succeed. Some fail fast
practitioners may see market resistance as disproving the idea, instead of
valuable feedback to incorporate into product adjustments.

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joshu
No product is truly tested until it faces the marketplace. Until then, even
the best ideas and plans may be wrong. So why invest deeply in things that
might not work? It'd be better to just know.

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wheels
There seem to be at least two different "fail fasts". I think you're talking
about ideas failing fast; Mark's talking about companies failing fast.

It bothers me seeing people giving up too easily. Pisses me off, even. That's
what struck a chord for me in Mark's post. It doesn't compute for me when I
see people get really excited about an idea, have the first iteration not
stick and then just stop. And that seems to be really common. I _think_ that's
the rub with Mark too.

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Uchikoma
People who follow "fail fast" actually work a lot harder, than those living in
dreams for years, VC how throw good money after bad money and then fail.

No idea where the notion "fail fast" = easily give up comes from.

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msuster
Your analogy is off base. The opposite of "fail fast" is not "living in dreams
for years." The arguments is: spend time planning before your launch (measure
twice, cut once) and don't give up easily if the first iteration doesn't work.

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revorad
_The problem is that when you brand something that will be interpreting
differently by people who weren’t part of the zeitgeist when the memo went out
about what “fail fast” meant then we educate the next generation of
entrepreneurs to do things the wrong way_

Very good point.

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hackoder
I always thought that fail fast meant the following:

# From there build the MVP (minimum viable product). I believe in launching
with a small set of features and learning from the market before you spend too
much money building out a feature rich product or before you put serious
capital to work.

# If you validate that there’s a market then go for it! If you don’t believe
that your product is resonating then pivot and find one!

(taken from his bullets on "What is the right way to build a startup?")

I really haven't seen any definitions of fail fast where it meant that you
waste money, don't respond to the market, and wrap things up.

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10ren
_“we’ll launch a bunch of products and see what works.” That is the old “throw
spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks” approach. It’s intellectually
lazy and I doubt many great companies are born this way._

Sony and HP were born this way.

But he makes a great point about commitments. When you pivot, what happens to
users who are reliant on your old product?

In my case, I felt committed to my customers, even after I really wanted to
close it down. Support was far from a full-time commitment, but it's also not
a clean end; the dangling commitment takes some of your attention, and this is
a real cost to account for. (On the plus side, I ended up getting an extra
$20,000 sale that I couldn't have imagined - maybe that would have happened
anyway, or maybe it was karma).

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njharman
This is conflicting advice "In general when capital is available take it." and
"It’s also bad to raise too much, too early."

I also think (based on being told by several serial entrepreneurs) that the
proper advice is "Avoid (VC) capital until you absolutely need it."

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Mc_Big_G
He's missing the point. If you fail fast, you haven't taken, or wasted,
$50,000 of your brother-in-law's money.

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fragmede
The article seems to take a rough tone to argue for this:

Fail faster.

