The Lean Startup Newsletter - October 22, 2014

The Lean Startup Newsletter - October 22, 2014 by Eric Ries

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10/22/2014

Earlier this week on Twitter, Marc Andreessen shared a list of tech people who who "routinely say interesting and provocative things.” His list includes founders, VCs, and other thought leaders. “What they have in common is,” Marc wrote, “when they say things, I learn things!”I enjoy these kinds of recommendations, which is perhaps why I’m a fan and investor of Nuzzel, which allows you to see Twitter as I see it. If you’re curious about who I’m following and the stories that are prominent in my feed, you can subscribe to my feed here.Speaking of recommendations, here are some pieces I enjoyed this week:“It’s not a substitute for experiments, it's a complement.”Noah Smith’s smart blog post about three ways of looking at the world touches upon issues that are equally relevant to startup know-how. The Lean Startup methodology hinges upon the importance of the scientific method, but ideally, startups should be learning whatever they can, using a mix of historical analysis, empirics, and of course, experimentation.The problem with "perfection"In a guest-post for Brad Feld’s blog, web strategist and novelist William Hertling shared an anecdote from David Bayles’ book Art and Fear about a ceramics class that was split into two groups: one that would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced; the others, solely on its quality.As it turned out, the best pieces were produced by students graded for quantity. “While the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”More data on the pipeline problemA USA Today analysis revealed that "top universities turn out black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering graduates at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them." 

More Lean Startup news:We can't find customers to interview. Now what?Lean Startup Productions recently launched The How, a site dedicated to helping you learn from entrepreneurs about running a Lean Startup. Check out April Joyner's recent interview with Cindy Alvarez about finding customers to interview here.Lean Startup Conference webcastsIf you missed the recent webcast "What Should You Really Measure?" with Alistair Croll, Danielle Morrill and me, you can watch that and other videos here. 

Cheers,Eric

Eric Rieshttps://twitter.com/ericrieshttp://www.startuplessonslearned.com