Don't Rush Outside the Building

Without First Stress Testing Your Business Model

👋 Hi there - I’m Ash. I share battle-tested recipes, strategies, and how-tos for systematically building repeatable and scalable business models delivered to your inbox every week. 

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“Get outside the building” is one of the battle cries of the Customer Development/Lean Startup movement, popularized by Steve Blank. This is a call for validating the riskiest assumptions in your business idea as early as possible with evidence-based facts you gather by interacting with customers.

But it is possible to rush outside too quickly -- only to get stuck later.

Yes, it is highly tempting for action-driven entrepreneurs to want to “rush out of the building” and immediately start testing their business model on customers. It's even possible to quickly find clusters of problems, pitch an offer, build a quick MVP, and charge your customers from day one -- which sounds exactly like what you should do.

So what's wrong with this approach?

The danger is getting stuck with a sub-optimal business model six or nine months down the line that either doesn’t match your ambition or isn’t scalable.

This is precisely the trap I found myself in with one of my early products that I will share with you in today’s issue.