TechExec 5: Lean Startup, Kintsugi, and Dogfooding

(Total read time: 5 minutes)

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Welcome to the 5th edition of TechExec - the newsletter that turbocharges your growth to become a Tech Executive!

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Now to the main content …

As promised, here are this week’s BLTs:

💼 B - a Business concept/theory/story

💝 L - a lifestyle advice

🤖 T - a Tech explainer

💼 B - Lean Startup

The Lean Startup approach is a methodology that emphasizes creating a product or service with minimum viable features and testing it with real customers before investing a fortune in development. This approach has several benefits, including

• reduced risk📉

• faster time-to-market ⌚

• improved product-market fit 💸

Lean Startup was developed by Eric Ries, who observed that many startups were failing because they were building products that nobody wanted.

One of the key principles of the lean startup is to prioritize learning over growth. This means that you should focus on understanding your customers' needs and pain points and use that information to improve your product or service. By doing so, you can create a product that truly solves a problem and meets your customers' expectations.

However, the Lean Startup also has its drawbacks. One of the cons is that it can be challenging to create an MVP that truly represents the final product. Additionally, it can be difficult to get early adopters to try the MVP, which can lead to slow adoption. Finally, some entrepreneurs may find it hard to balance the need for speed with the need for quality.

💝 L - Kintsugi

Today’s lifestyle concept is Kintsugi. Like Ikigai, the origins of Kintsugi came from Japanese culture, but it recently got popular to my circles because of a Bollywood movie (Pathaan) I recently watched.

So what exactly is Kintsugi? It’s definitely not the beautiful dance sequence above 😜 

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. It’s like a DIY project that turns a disaster into a masterpiece. Instead of hiding the cracks, this 400-year-old technique highlights them with a golden touch, making the piece even more unique and beautiful.

But why are we talking about Kintsugi in this newsletter? Because it’s a metaphor for healing ourselves - sometimes fixing our broken pieces can create something even better than the original. So, whether you're dealing with a broken heart, career setback, or physical injury, embrace your flaws like a Kintsugi artist and turn your scars into gold.

Remember, wellness isn't just about bouncing back, but about shining brighter with your golden cracks.

🤖 T - Dogfooding

The year was 1988. Paul Maritz, a Microsoft executive, was desperate for customers to try a new product. So he emailed a colleague:

They created an internal server called “\\dogfood” and sent it out to staff. And that was the first recorded usage of the term “dogfooding”, and now its thrown around in a lot of tech companies.

There are other similar terms such as “practice what you preach”, “you make your bed, you lie in it”, and “be your own guinea pig”. But nothing stuck as much as dogfooding 😅 

So what does dogfooding mean? It means having your employee beta test out the product internally to work out any kinks before shipping out to the customers.

To properly dogfood a product, a company needs to ensure that its employees are using the product under the same conditions and scenarios that the customers would use it. This means that the product needs to be tested in a variety of situations and environments to identify any potential issues.

Dogfooding is not just about identifying problems, but also about improving the product. Companies can use the feedback from their employees to make changes and improvements to the product before releasing it to the public. This can lead to a better user experience, increased customer satisfaction, and ultimately, greater success for the company.

On the other hand, dogfooding can be taken too far. Here are a few examples,

• For a really long time Microsoft employees had to hide their iPhones, as they could only be seen with Windows phones.

• Facebook employees had to do a lot of official business on Facebook groups, which as you imagine, can be pretty annoying.

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Until next time!

Gaurav