User-centered startup = Design thinking + Lean
Two schools of thought that have risen to prominence in the startup world are Design Thinking and Lean. Both promise to help you find better product solutions, but they take you on different routes to get there. In this post I highlight both approaches and propose that if you want to run a user-centered startup you need to use both: a Design thinking + Lean combo.
Faster horses: Everyone’s favorite excuse to skip user research
Users won’t tell you how to design or build a product. That is distinctly your job. But users can tell you about virtually every requirement the solution should have, which is the next best thing.
The difference between PhDs and startups
There is more than one way to push that boundary of human-knowledge. One way, is to take the long, slow hike to the edge and dip a toe over. The other is take a giant leap of assumption. That is what some startups do.