You’ve seen the term "MVP" plastered all over LinkedIn. Every founder claims they’re being "lean," usually as an excuse for launching a buggy app or skipping a marketing budget. But honestly? Most of them are missing the point Eric Ries was trying to make.
Back in 2011, Eric Ries published The Lean Startup, and it basically became the Bible for Silicon Valley. He wasn’t just talking about being "cheap." He was talking about science. Specifically, the scientific method applied to the messy, high-stakes world of building a business from nothing.
The core idea is simple: stop guessing.
The Build-Measure-Learn Loop (and why it’s not just a circle)
Most people think building a startup is a straight line. You have a "brilliant" idea, you raise some cash, you build the thing in a dark room for a year, and then you launch it to thunderous applause.
✨ Don't miss: McDonald's Corporate Kamala Harris: What Really Happened Behind the Arches
Except the applause never comes. Usually, it's just silence.
Ries argued that the biggest waste in business isn't money—it's building something that nobody wants. To fix this, he introduced the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop. It's the heartbeat of the methodology.
- Build: Create the smallest possible version of your idea (the Minimum Viable Product).
- Measure: See how real people actually use it. Don't listen to what they say they’ll do; look at what they actually do.
- Learn: Use that data to decide whether to stay the course or change direction entirely.
Speed is the only metric that matters here. It’s not about how fast you can code; it’s about how fast you can get through that circle. The faster you learn, the less money you burn on features that’ll eventually get deleted.
What an MVP actually is (Hint: It’s not a crappy product)
This is where the most common misconception lives. People hear "Minimum Viable Product" and think "Minimum Quality Product." They ship a broken website and call it "lean."
Ries hates that.
An MVP is the version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. Sometimes, an MVP isn't even a product.
Take Dropbox, for example. Before they wrote a single line of complex syncing code, Drew Houston made a three-minute video. He just showed how the product would work if it existed. That video was his MVP. Thousands of people signed up for the beta overnight. He didn't build a cloud storage empire to see if people wanted it; he built a video.
Then there’s Zappos. Nick Swinmurn didn't build a massive warehouse of shoes to start. He went to a local mall, took photos of shoes, and posted them on a basic website. When someone bought a pair, he went to the mall, bought them at full price, and mailed them. He lost money on every sale. But he proved that people were willing to buy shoes online without ever touching them.
That’s a real MVP. It’s a test, not a discount version of your final vision.
The Pivot: Knowing when to kill your darlings
If you've spent three years and $2 million on an idea that isn't working, it’s hard to admit you're wrong. Ries calls this the "Pivot or Persevere" moment.
A pivot isn't a failure. It's a structured course correction designed to test a new fundamental hypothesis about the product, strategy, and engine of growth.
- Instagram started as Burbn, a complicated check-in app. They realized people only cared about the photo filters. Pivot.
- Slack started as a video game called Glitch. The game failed, but the internal chat tool they built for the developers was amazing. Pivot.
If your metrics are flatlining and you’re just "persevering" because you're stubborn, you're not being an entrepreneur. You're being a martyr. Lean startups use Innovation Accounting to track if they are actually making progress, rather than looking at "vanity metrics" like total registered users or press hits.
Why it still matters in the age of AI
You might think that in 2026, with AI doing half the work, we don't need "lean" anymore. Honestly, it's the opposite.
Because it’s now easier and cheaper to build anything, the world is being flooded with everything. The risk isn't "can we build it?" anymore. AI can build it. The risk is "should we build it?"
📖 Related: Why Variety Wholesalers Reopens Several Big Lots Stores and What It Means for Your Wallet
The Lean Startup framework is even more vital now because the noise is louder. You can use AI to generate 50 MVPs in a week, but if you don't have a structured way to measure which one solves a real human problem, you're just generating digital trash.
Moving beyond the garage: Lean for big companies
Eric Ries didn't stop at startups. He spent years working with giants like General Electric to implement "The Startup Way."
Big companies usually die because they stop taking risks. They have "silos" and "management layers" that act as immune systems against new ideas. Ries taught them to create internal startups—small, cross-functional teams with their own "metabolic rate" and the freedom to fail fast.
It turns out, even if you have 50,000 employees, the Build-Measure-Learn loop still works. It just requires a different kind of leadership that rewards learning over just "hitting the numbers."
Putting it into practice
If you're sitting on an idea right now, stop writing your 40-page business plan. Nobody is going to read it, and half of it is probably wrong anyway.
- Identify your riskiest assumption. What is the one thing that, if it's not true, makes your whole business a waste of time? Usually, it's "people will pay for this."
- Design a smoke test. Can you get 10 people to give you their email address or $5 for a solution that doesn't exist yet?
- Stop looking at vanity metrics. Don't care about likes or site visits. Care about retention and "the five whys." If a user leaves, ask why. Then ask why again. And again. Find the root cause of the friction.
The goal isn't to be "lean" for the sake of it. The goal is to find a sustainable business model before you run out of money. It’s about turning the "art" of entrepreneurship into a repeatable, disciplined process.
Practical Next Steps
- Audit your current project: List every feature you are currently building. For each one, ask: "What specific hypothesis does this test?" If you can't answer, stop building it until you can.
- Define your "Leap of Faith" assumptions: Write down the two most important assumptions you're making about your customers.
- Run a "Five Whys" session: The next time a process breaks or a deadline is missed, don't blame a person. Sit the team down and ask "Why did this happen?" five times until you hit the systemic flaw.
- Set a "Pivot or Persevere" date: Mark a day on the calendar three months from now. On that day, look at your "Actionable Metrics." If they haven't moved, you must commit to a pivot or shut it down. No excuses.