I sympathize with the author. Lean Startup is a very good tool that should be in your toolbox, but it's being sold and resold as "the way". It's not the only way, and it doesn't guarantee success, not more so that knowing the scientific method guarantees you a Nobel prize, or a published paper.
Lean methods make some implicit assumptions about the cost of finding early adopters and building MVPs, and each entrepreneur should figure out the costs of such activities and determine if they are worth pursuing provided the potential benefit. In enterprise software settings, for example, an MVP might mean 2 years of work, that means you have only one iteration if you follow the lean methods by the book. Does that mean that you can't successfully build enterprise software? Of course you can. You can work with a customer for 2 years, deliver this product to them, and then market it to other similar companies, and then, only then, iterate. Is this still Lean? I don't know.
Also, I can't fail to see Lean as an optimization method, similar to gradient descent. With gradient descent, each iteration you inch up in the direction that seems to bring the highest reward. When using gradient descent in real world you realize that where you start matters, and the function you are exploring also matters, a lot. You can start iterating near a minimum, and have a straight descent line, but you might iterate on a plain, and basically be lost forever. Of your function might have many local minima. You have to first explore the problem space and make sure you where you start iterating close enough to the minimum, or that a good solution can be found by iterationz. Where you start, or when you decide to restart, is what the Entrepreneur's vision provides.
Gradient descent is also quite blind, and the fact that the last 20 iterations in one direction didn't bring any success provides no insight on what is going to happen if you iterate once more. The function you're exploring might just have a sharp drop one iteration away, or it might continue to be flat for 100 more steps.
If your MVPs can be built quickly, or if you are close to the optima, or you have unlimited cash and time to explore, the lean method is the way to go. For other cases, you might have to weigh in the pros and the cons.
Lean methods make some implicit assumptions about the cost of finding early adopters and building MVPs, and each entrepreneur should figure out the costs of such activities and determine if they are worth pursuing provided the potential benefit. In enterprise software settings, for example, an MVP might mean 2 years of work, that means you have only one iteration if you follow the lean methods by the book. Does that mean that you can't successfully build enterprise software? Of course you can. You can work with a customer for 2 years, deliver this product to them, and then market it to other similar companies, and then, only then, iterate. Is this still Lean? I don't know.
Also, I can't fail to see Lean as an optimization method, similar to gradient descent. With gradient descent, each iteration you inch up in the direction that seems to bring the highest reward. When using gradient descent in real world you realize that where you start matters, and the function you are exploring also matters, a lot. You can start iterating near a minimum, and have a straight descent line, but you might iterate on a plain, and basically be lost forever. Of your function might have many local minima. You have to first explore the problem space and make sure you where you start iterating close enough to the minimum, or that a good solution can be found by iterationz. Where you start, or when you decide to restart, is what the Entrepreneur's vision provides.
Gradient descent is also quite blind, and the fact that the last 20 iterations in one direction didn't bring any success provides no insight on what is going to happen if you iterate once more. The function you're exploring might just have a sharp drop one iteration away, or it might continue to be flat for 100 more steps.
If your MVPs can be built quickly, or if you are close to the optima, or you have unlimited cash and time to explore, the lean method is the way to go. For other cases, you might have to weigh in the pros and the cons.