How the ‘Failure’ Culture of Startups Is Killing Innovation
Far from being the measure of disgrace it once was, failure now seems to be a sort of badge of honor. But underlying many popular Silicon Valley failure clichés is entrepreneurs’ belief that “starting companies these days is akin to doing research in the past” — as if we don’t need research when the opportunity to fail is so readily available.
Somewhere along the way, it got to be uncool to reduce one’s risk of failure.
Part of this may be because the risk of failure is dramatically lower than it used to be. But another reason is that many people don’t actually understand what research is, and have somehow conflated concepts like “rapid prototyping,” “lean startup,” “minimal viable product,” and “[insert] other smart-sounding thing to do” with avoiding research
That kind of thinking might be fine for entrepreneurs focusing only on their personal risk and fear of failure, but it has real financial, cultural, and opportunity costs for businesses. (The opportunity cost includes all the needs that go unmet because they didn’t happen to occur to a lone entrepreneur or narrowly focused team.)
This attitude is also embraced and promoted by venture investors because the common wisdom is that high-risk investments have a bigger upside. To be blunt: Many VCs don’t care whether any one particular investment enjoys long-term success. They only care that a percentage of companies in their portfolio nets them a high return. So a successful outcome for the investors (like an exit or liquidity event) might result in the company and its product disappearing completely, which isn’t a good outcome for the users of that product and is often terrible for the employees.HT: peHUB
But product design, and running a business, isn’t the same as investing. And that’s why research matters.
What Research Isn’t
Research, the kind I’m talking about, is not asking people what they want or how they feel. Nor is it a science. Design research is just a tool....MORE
