The Limits to Lean Startup for Opportunity Identification and New Venture Creation

Abstract

Lean startup (LS) is an entrepreneurship strategy popularized over the past decade. The LS approach offers entrepreneurs a framework to identify customer needs, market opportunities, and product/market fit as part of the opportunity identification and venture creation process. It also provides firms the opportunity to develop dynamic capabilities to engage a competitive and everchanging marketplace. This paper examines findings from a literature review of peer and non-peer review sources focusing on the limits of LS. Key observations include: (1) inconsistent experiences, with many not demonstrating successful implementation; (2) methodological issues (e.g., setting up of proper hypotheses and experiments, using a proper minimum viable product, and pivoting) exist; (3) biases and getting the right customers challenge customer discovery and interviewing; (4) inability to translate to “breakthrough” ventures; (5) failure to provide for all the essential capabilities for success that venture capitalists seek in a startup; and (5) limited marketing and sales emphasis, which is essential to acquiring customers, generating revenue, and fostering growth. Entrepreneurs can draw on these learnings to (1) recognize LS is one methodology to draw on from one’s entrepreneurial “Toolkit”; (2) recognize these limitations; (3) guard against individual tendencies and biases that will limit effectiveness of the methodology when used; (4) engage in training and mentorship to fully understand the framework, the skills needed, and the processes to correctly (and consistently) implement the approach. Further research should be conducted to build on these findings and explore further LS applications, practices, gaps, and theory.