So you have a great tech idea, where to start?

The convention has always been you get a new idea, you write a proposal, request funding, assemble a team, build it, perfection it and implement it then hope that it would work. Or if you’re an entrepreneur, you write your business plan, you seek funding build your idea, launch it and hope that it would work.

The problem with this approach is that no amount of surveys or data analytics can predict that your audience will actually use your new product; so you deplete a considerable amount of resources then hope that the end it didn’t all go to waste.

The cure for this problem is the new lean methodology approach. The concept is borrowed from manufacturing and applied to tech. It was made famous by Eric Ries in his book, The Lean Startup.

The ida is to seek validation before investing or building anything significant. The following article does a great job introducing the methodology.

This is related to what we discussed in class about the risk that comes with investing in big IT projects. If big organizations learn from startups and find a way to accurately test the validity of their ventures, they would reduce their risks to a more reasonable level.

Do you guys think that this method would be effective?

Is there any industries where this method wouldn’t apply?