I'm interviewing Eric Ries of The Lean Startup tomorrow. What should I ask? | Hacker News Reader

I'm interviewing Eric Ries of The Lean Startup tomorrow. What should I ask?

28 pointsepi0Bauqu17 comments

It's for tractionbook.com. I should have enough time to get into specifics, which is always my goal.

Why would someone who knows how to build and has built a successful startup want to go around consulting on how to build one? Copyrighting the phrase "Lean Startup" is a consultant's action, for e.g.

If IMVU was wildly successful like he says why did he leave so early?

What companies since IMVU would he consider to be lean startups? And why haven't we heard more breakout stories of companies using the methodology?

What's the difference between a Minimum Viable Product and a Proof Of Concept?

What best practices would he recommend if you need to do customer development & discovery over the phone?

Much of what I've seen/read about Lean Startups seems to be recasting of Lean Software Development and SCRUM/Agile techniques applied to the niche of "Startup". Much of those can be rooted in Lean techniques from Toyoda & others (Deming, Ford) applied to manufacturing from 60 years ago.

Can you comment on why you think those (SCRUM/Agile/Lean SW) are different than Lean Startups? For example, if someone is practiced in SCRUM and is doing a startup - what do they have to gain from learning about Lean Startups?

How much does Lean startup have in common with Customer Development (percentage-wise) and how does it diverge? What are the main differences?

Could you foresee some limits of this methodology? If yes, what are they?

In a few words, how would you define Lean Startup? And main differences with others?

Do you have an idea of how many companies have adopted this methodology?

Did he measure, at IMVU, the real gain between first methodology they were using and Lean Startup model they implemented?

Doesn't the whole lean startup thing suck the joy out of building something which you are passionate about?

To what extent this methodology could scale? iow, is it really only for startups?

In case, you had a new idea. Would you try to get the MVP before writing the first line of code? If yes, could you explain us how and why?

Any thought on whether Lean Startup could take part in recover from US economic crisis?

What are the main strengths / advantages of Lean Startup?

So how did it go; When will the interview come out?

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