Seven Features of a Lean Startup

The founders of lean startups don’t begin with a business plan; they begin with the search for a business model. Only after quick rounds of experimentation and feedback reveal a model that works do lean founders focus on execution. On the left are features of a lean startup. On the right are features of a traditional startup.

Lean		Traditional
Business model Hypothesis driven	Strategy	​Business plan Implementation
​Customer development Get out of the office and test hypotheses	New Product Process	Product management Prepare offering for market following a linear, step-by-step plan
Agile development Build the product iteratively and incrementally	Engineering	Waterfall development Fully specify the product before building it
Customer + agile development teams Hire for learning, nimbleness, and speed	Organization	Departments by function Hire for experience and ability to execute
Metrics that matter Customer acquisition cost, lifetime customer value, churn, viralness	Performance	Accounting Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement
Expected Fix by iterating on ideas and pivoting away from ones that don’t work	Failure	Exception Fix by firing executives
Rapid Operates on good-enough data	Speed	Measured Operates on complete data

Source: Blank, Steve. Why the lean startup changes everything. Harvard Business Review.