The Lean Startup

owever, learning is cold comfort to employees who are fol owing an entrepreneur into the unknown. It is cold comfort to the investors who al ocate precious money, time, and energy to entrepreneurial teams. It is cold comfort to the organizations—large and smal —that depend on entrepreneurial innovation to survive. You can’t take learning to the bank; you can’t spend it or invest it. You cannot give it to customers and cannot return it to limited partners. Is it any wonder that learning has a bad name in entrepreneurial and managerial circles?

Unfortunately, “learning” is the oldest excuse in the book for a failure of execution. It’s what managers fal back on when they fail to achieve the results we promised.

What if we found ourselves building something that nobody wanted? In that case what did it matter if we did it on time and on budget?