Article 14; The Rise of the Fleet-Footed Start-Up

This week’s article is titled “The Rise of the Fleet-Footed Start-Up” and was written by Steve Lohr of the New York Times. The author refers “Fleet-Footed Start Up” to companies that make there way into fruition via a slimmed down business plan. The recent surge in the popularity of companies starting this way is first seen through the example of Eric Ries of Grockit, an online education network. Supposedly he is the man who actually coined the term “lean start-up”.

“His inspiration, he says, was the lean manufacturing process, fine-tuned in Japanese factories decades ago and focused on eliminating any work or investment that doesn’t produce value for customers”. Also a proponent to the subject of lean start-ups is a man coming from an entirely different perspective than Ries. Steven Blank, a 56 year old “serial entrepreneur”, describes it as “lean manufacturing for start-ups”.

“Since 1978, he has been a founder or early employee in eight start-ups, both winners and losers”. His job today is to “advise start-up companies and teach at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley”.

As far as internet companies are concerned, the author notes that they “have steadily taken advantage of the falling costs of getting up and running — often spending just hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of the millions that were required several years ago”. He also adds that “the lean start-up formula adds management practices tailored to exploit the Web environment”.

The goal as seen through the eyes of Mr. Blank is to “accelerate the pace of learning. A start-up is a temporary organization designed to discover a profitable, scalable business model”. The author further comments that “many young Internet businesses have embraced the lean start-up principles of beginning small and getting products into the marketplace quickly in pursuit of paying customers.”

Finally, the change that Ries and Blank have been part of is affecting the investors themselves. These venture capitalists will have a shrinking role in seeking and backing promising young entrepreneurs.

Main Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/business/25unboxed.html?ref=technology

Second Article:
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/09/lean-startup.html