All you can ever do is invalidate one exact execution of the idea.
Absolutely agree with you and I wish the folks that teach lean would emphasize this more.
For every successful company, there are probably multiple teams that tried to test the same general idea only to conclude that it won't work.
Overall, I think lean start up movement does a great job of taking credit when it works out while not delving enough into all the people who gave up because the idea didn't validate itself according to the lean process...and yet another company with a similar idea made it work.
Absolutely agree with you and I wish the folks that teach lean would emphasize this more.
For every successful company, there are probably multiple teams that tried to test the same general idea only to conclude that it won't work.
Overall, I think lean start up movement does a great job of taking credit when it works out while not delving enough into all the people who gave up because the idea didn't validate itself according to the lean process...and yet another company with a similar idea made it work.