Is your product disruptive or sustaining? There’s nothing wrong with being sustaining by the way – a disruptive company that is successful quickly becomes a sustaining company. The important thing is to understand where on this spectrum you lie because both need to think differently when it comes to everything from marketing to how to develop new products.
On the disruptive side you need to be optimised for learning, and on the sustaining side you have to be optimised for execution, and the big sin of any company – from start-up to corporate – is doing the wrong thing at the wrong stage.
At Mind the Product 2013, Brant Cooper and Patrick Vlaskovits showed how to identify which stage you’re in and are heading for, and how to act accordingly.
Execute on what’s known – learn what’s unknown.
Brant and Patrick are co-authors of The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development and the New York Times best seller The Lean Entrepreneur. They both have a long track record of founding and building startups, as well as thought leadership in the Lean Startup movement.
