I'm a big fan of Mark Suster's blog -- love his straight-shooting style and the fact he's always willing to challenge conventional wisdom.
This particular article, however, didn't strike me as controversial as the title suggested it would be. A bit of background: I worked for years in a big organization which epitomized the opposite of "fail fast" ... best described as "fail really, really, really slow by forcing dev teams through ridiculous amounts of documentation and planning because everyone is too afraid of failure". And ever since then I've found the "fail fast" mantra has been useful in a wide variety of contexts. I've never, ever seen it encourage the behavior that Mark describes, of people being cavalier with investors' money. Admittedly, that could easily be a SV-only syndrome, where startups are more reckless with cash than they are here. To me the article was more about terminology than anything else ... Mark and everyone who responded agreed in the importance of an emergent strategy, discovery, adaptability, ability to pivot, etc in helping a startup be successful. They just couldn't agree on what to call it. Personally I've got no problem with using the word "fail" ... I've never met an entrepreneur who would interpret this to mean a relaxed attitude to failure. Most are fighting tooth and nail to see their project succeed. I've always thought "fail fast" was just shorthand for IDEO's famous mantra: "fail early to succeed sooner". Makes it pretty clear that the goal is still success! Andrew Dowling tapestry.net On Jun 13, 9:04 pm, "Mick Liubinskas (Pollenizer)" <bigm...@gmail.com> wrote: > There is an interesting blog post on the idea of fail fast; > > http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/03/11/the-fail-fast-mantra-ne... > > It's from a guy who has had some successful startups and is now a VC. > > There is no 'one way' to build a great startup and even with his model > there is a lot of learnings needed. > > Interested to hear peoples thoughts. > > Mick "Failed a bunch" Liubinskas -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia/msg/351e183e1303508d?hl=en%3Fhl%3Den No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself. To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
