Management Decision

Lean Startup: a comprehensive historical review

Rafael Fazzi Bortolini, Marcelo Nogueira Cortimiglia, Angela de Moura Ferreira Danilevicz, Antonio
Ghezzi,
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Lean Startup
Lean Startup: a comprehensive
historical review
Rafael Fazzi Bortolini, Marcelo Nogueira Cortimiglia and
Angela de Moura Ferreira Danilevicz
Department of Industrial Engineering,
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, and Received 12 July 2017
Antonio Ghezzi Revised 14 May 2018
Accepted 24 June 2018
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering,
Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
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Abstract
Purpose – The primary goal of a startup is to find a viable business model that can generate value for its
customers while being effectively captured by the startup itself. This business model, however, is not easily
defined, being a consequence of the application of tools involving trials, data analyses and testing. The Lean
Startup (LS) methodology proposes a process for agile and iterative validation of business models. Given the
popularity and importance of such methodology in professional circles, the purpose of this paper is to conduct
a historical literature review of existing academic and professional literature, correlating LS concepts and
activities to previous theory and alternative business model validation methods.
Design/methodology/approach – A historically oriented systematic literature review employing snowball
sampling was conducted in order to identify academic and professional literature and references for iterative
validation of business models. A total of 12 scholarly journals and professional magazines dealing with
strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, startups and management were used as data sources. The extensive
literature review resulted in 963 exploratory readings and 118 papers fully analyzed.
Findings – The results position the LS as a practical-oriented and up-to-date implementation of strategies
based on the Learning School of strategy making and the effectuation approach to entrepreneurship;
the authors also identify a number of methods and tools that can complement the LS principles.
Originality/value – This paper identified and synthesized the scientific, academic and professional
foundations that precede, support and complement the main concepts, processes and methods advocated by
the LS methodology.
Keywords Startups, Historical review, Business model validation, Lean Startup, Learning School
Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction
There is no single, universally accepted definition of “startup” (Eisenmann et al., 2011;
Paternoster et al., 2014). For Eisenmann et al. (2011), startups are ventures created to launch
new products in the market. Ries (2011) describes startups as ventures designed to create a
new product or service under market conditions of great uncertainty. Similarly, Blank (2007)
understands that the main objective of a startup should be to find a repeatable and scalable
business model.
A business model defines how a firm creates and delivers value to its customers, while
capturing a share of it so as to be economically and financially sustainable (Teece, 2010).
Unlike large firms, startups find it difficult to use traditional business planning (Blank, 2013),
whose premise is that future results can be extrapolated based on the analysis of past
experiences (McGrath, 2010), because there is no past experience in a startup besides the
uncertainty of its essentially innovative nature. As Picken (2017) argues, startups must
overcome numerous transition hurdles during their growth and maturation, and fixed plans
rarely survive these transitions. A business model is rarely fixed and is usually built upon trial
and experimentation, especially in new ventures (Cortimiglia et al., 2016; Cosenz and Noto, Management Decision
2018; Yang et al., 2018). According to Magretta (2002), when a firm starts to operate, the © Emerald Publishing Limited
0025-1747
hypotheses that form its initial business model, including motivational and economic issues, DOI 10.1108/MD-07-2017-0663
 MD are subject to constant market test and validation. The success of an organization comes from
the ability to adapt its business model dynamically and effectively. Maintaining a viable long-
term business model, thus, must be an entrepreneur’s constant task (Teece, 2010).
Based on the abovementioned premises, a growing stream in entrepreneurship theory
argues that startups typically evolve their business model through constant
experimentation and learning (Sarasvathy, 2001; Baker and Nelson, 2005; Fisher, 2012;
Kerr et al., 2014; Picken, 2017). Recently, Ries (2011) created the movement known as Lean
Startup (LS), from the eponymous work, by proposing a business model validation (BMV )
methodology based on rapid iterations. It was not the first time such an approach has been
proposed to the general public. Before Ries, authors such as McGrath and MacMillan (2000),
Sarasvathy (2001), Baker and Nelson (2005) and Blank (2007) had already challenged the
business plan framework as the foundation of new ventures. However, the success of Ries’
book was unprecedented: hundreds of thousands of copies were sold in short time, and his
theories became known and used worldwide, becoming a reference among entrepreneurs
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(Blank, 2013; Greenwald, 2012; Yang et al., 2018) and almost standard practice when
launching new startups. Even among the rapidly expanding popular business literature on
how to successfully create new ventures (see Anthony, 2014; Arteaga and Hyland, 2014;
Furr and Ahlstrom, 2011; Maurya, 2012; Furr and Dyer, 2014), Ries’ LS surely stands out in
terms of popularity with and impact on practitioners.
However, the work by Ries (2011), possibly due to its eminently practical approach and its
focus on hands-on prescriptive advice, lacks a strong theoretical background (Frederiksen and
Brem, 2017; Berglund et al., 2018; Levinthal and Contigiani, 2018; Ghezzi and Cavallo, 2018;
Yang et al., 2018). Occasionally, the author cites sources of inspiration throughout the text or
in notes, or makes suggestions for complementary reading, but avoids further analysis of the
LS background – although Frederiksen and Brem (2017) conjectured that this background
would probably not be unknown to Ries. In any case, such apparent lack of explicit grounding
in previous scholarly tradition can be argued to be a reason for a somewhat lackluster
reception of LS as a research theme among entrepreneurship academics. In fact, a recent study
mapping the scientific field of entrepreneurship has failed to identify LS as a cohesive research
topic (Landström and Harirchi, 2018). Additionally, although the LS movement originated in
the software industry, there is very little systematic empirical investigation on LS applicability
and effectiveness in the real world, as most research tend to focus on instances of use in
isolated settings (e.g. single companies or sectors) (Power, 2014; Edison et al., 2018) or
entrepreneurship education (Harms, 2015; Mansoori, 2017). We posit that a more rigorous
analysis of the academic antecedents of LS may provide important insights about its
implementation challenges as well as its merits and shortcomings.
Given the importance and popularity of the LS with entrepreneurs from around the
world, this paper presents a historical review of academic and professional works about
BMV methods and related concepts that were published previously or subsequently to
emergence of the LS phenomenon. This review aims to clarify two questions:
RQ1. Which are the key scientific, academic and professional concepts and theories that
may have inspired the LS?
RQ2. How does academic and professional knowledge prior to the LS can help
complement the study and understanding about this methodology?
Answering these questions will enable authors’ to addressed the research gaps identified.
The paper is structured in five sections. Following this Introduction, in Section 2 we
present a brief review on startups, business models and the LS methodology. Next, the
methodological procedures are outlined in Section 3, while the main results are presented and
discussed in Section 4. Finally, in Section 5 we draw conclusions and discuss the main
implications of our findings for future development of theory and practice of entrepreneurship.
 2. Startups, business models and LS Lean Startup
This section offers an overview of startups, business models and a brief description of the
LS methodology.

2.1 Startups
The creation of a new business venture is recognized as a difficult, complex and risky
process (Chrisman et al., 2005; Trimi and Berbegal-Mirabent, 2012). A factor related to the
risk associated with startups addresses the need to deal with uncertainty in different
perspectives: market, product, competitiveness, people and finances (Paternoster et al.,
2014; Sull, 2004; Chang, 2004). In this sense, for Eisenmann et al. (2011), the greatest risk
that an entrepreneur may come across is to offer the market a product that no one wants
or needs. All this uncertainty makes investors, potential employees, suppliers and buyers
hesitate when it comes to providing resources for the startup (Chang, 2004). Such question
leads to another feature associated with this type of organization, the one of naturally
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having limited economic, human and physical resources. Therefore, such resources should
be effectively implemented and managed (Mcgrath and Macmillan, 1995; Drori et al., 2009;
Paternoster et al., 2014).
These conditions contribute to the high failure rates of startups (Stinchcombe, 1965;
Chang, 2004). Besides the factors mentioned, Trimi and Berbegal-Mirabent (2012) argue that
a major cause of failure in startups is the lack of a structured process to discover and
understand their markets, identify their customers and validate their hypotheses in the
early stages of design. On the other hand, startup failures could be avoided or at least their
related costs could be reduced if managers of new ventures based on innovation would use
the appropriate tools for control and planning (McGrath and MacMillan, 1995).

2.2 Business models

Although the term “business model” has been part of the business world’s jargon for a
considerable amount of time (Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010), the concept began to be
studied more carefully after the second half of the 1990s. Since then, it has been a recurring
topic in academic studies and papers (e.g. see Osterwalder et al., 2005; Zott et al., 2011;
Martikainen et al., 2014). One of the factors contributing to the increase in interest for the
expression was the growth of the internet itself and its impact on traditional business
strategies (Zott et al., 2011; Osterwalder et al., 2005).
Despite numerous studies, there is no agreed definition for the concept of business model
(Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart, 2010; Zott et al., 2011; Massa et al., 2017). For Magretta
(2002), a business model should be a representation of how the company operates, told
through a story. For Chesbrough and Rosenbloom (2002), the business model is a device that
demonstrates the connection between technological development and the creation of
economic value. Casadesus-Masanell and Ricart (2010) seek to separate and at the same time
relate the business model concepts and strategy, and define the business model as a
reflection of the company strategy. More objectively, Teece (2010) describes business model
as defining the way the company creates and delivers value to customers and how to
convert the payments received in profit. Zott and Amit (2013, p. 404), in a similar way,
believe that the business model “describes how the company conducts its business.”
Different authors analyzed or proposed analytical dimensions of a business model
(Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002; Osterwalder et al., 2005), which could be summarized
as: value proposition; value creation; value delivery; value appropriation; and value
networking (Cortimiglia et al., 2016). Value proposition refers to an overview of the several
products and services offered to the customer by the company (Osterwalder et al., 2005).
Creating value refers to the company’s unique internal characteristics to determine its
market approach, including resources, processes and skills needed to create value.
 MD Delivering value, in turn, refers to how the company is organized to deliver value to
customers and partners, including the distribution chains. Value appropriation defines
how the company captures value and generates profit. Finally, value networking
demonstrates how the firm cooperates with other organizations to create value for
customers (Cortimiglia et al., 2016).

2.3 Lean Startup

One of the common definitions of a startup is of a temporary organization designed to
search for a repeatable and scalable business model (Blank, 2007). In this sense, the
consensus among scholars is that a nascent company, in early stages of operation, most of
the time does not have a consolidated and viable business model that is able to sustain the
organization’s long-term goals (Chesbrough and Rosenbloom, 2002; Chrisman et al., 2005;
Teece, 2010). It is common, for example, for entrepreneurs to start new businesses with only
some rudimentary concepts in mind (Gruber, 2007) as well as severely limited resources to
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make do with (Baker and Nelson, 2005). As argued by Chesbrough and Rosenbloom (2002),
the initial business model of a company is a hypothesis or vague idea of how to deliver value
to the customer. Teece (2010) complements, stating that the ideal business model rarely
appears in the early stages of a new business.
In environments and situations of great uncertainty, complexity and speed of change,
especially for new business ventures or startups, many scholars believe that success comes
from the speed at which the organization can conduct tests and experiments, learn and
evolve from its business model (Mcgrath and Macmillan, 1995; Lynn et al., 1996;
Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010). More specifically, it is considered that internet-based
enterprises are the perfect example of an environment in which the speed of business creates
the need for business models to be constantly tested and adjusted (Wirtz et al., 2010).
To achieve this cycle of evolution from their business model, startups must
implement light and simple methods and processes that allow us to iterate and evolve from
basic prototypes of products through the constant customer feedback opinion (Paternoster
et al., 2014). In this sense, Ries (2011) has coined the term LS to describe a methodology
oriented to help organizations to carry out experiments and iterate when looking for a
sustainable business model. His work has gotten wide repercussions in the market and
attention from new entrepreneurs (Eisenmann et al., 2011; Blank and Dorf, 2012).
The methodology presented by Ries (2011) centers on a build-measure-learn (BML)
process called, similar to the cycles plan-do-check-act (PDCA) by Deming (1986) and
observe-orient-decide-act by Boyd (1986). The synthetic process is shown in Figure 1,
adapted from Ries (2011).
For a better analysis, this process was divided into its constituting activities, which are
reported in Figure 2, adapted from Ries (2011), Eisenmann et al. (2011) and Blank and Dorf (2012).
In relation to Figure 2, the following steps are described:
(1) Building the business vision: also known as ideation, it is the stage where there is the
creative process of generating ideas and designing the business that the
entrepreneur wants to develop (Mueller and Thoring, 2012). The business vision
should stay the same while the BML cycle is run, being discarded only if the
experiments result in enough negative perceptions. The ideation phase is not
explicitly part of the LS methodology.
(2) Formulating the business model and hypotheses: in this step, the delivery model of
value to customers is designed. A hypothesis is a formalization of explicit or implicit
assumptions about one or more dimensions of the business model, initially
considered uncertain or doubtful (Blank and Dorf, 2012). The results of this step are
always ideas.
 Lean Startup
Build

Ideas Product

Learn Measure

Data Figure 1.
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BML process

Iterating

Giving up

Formulates a
Building Measuring ?
business model Learning
experiments results
and hypotheses
Building the
business Escalating
vision Pivoting Figure 2.
The LS process

(3) Building experiments: an activity of scientific nature in which the researcher or

entrepreneur, through the manipulation of controlled variables, notes the variation
of independent variables. They are used to test the business model hypotheses.
There are several types of experiments, such as qualitative interviews, a/b tests,
prototypes, launch pages, minimum viable product (MVP), smoke tests and
concierge (Blank and Dorf, 2012).
(4) Measuring results: through data analysis and using statistical tools, the entrepreneur
must measure and monitor the results of their experiments and confront them with
previously defined hypotheses.
(5) Learning: a key concept and goal in the early stages of a startup. It consists of
confirming or ruling out hypotheses through experiments. Ries (2011) calls this
validated learning, whose outcomes fall into four categories: pivoting, iterating,
escalating and giving up. After conducting an experiment and discarding a
hypothesis, pivoting it is the action of radically changing one or more dimensions of
the business model in order to formulate a new hypothesis and test it through new
experiments (Blank and Dorf, 2012). Iterating is a less radical change than pivoting.
Thanks to the learning acquired, it consists of promoting one or more changes in the
business model or product to test the new hypotheses. Generally, iterations have a
 MD positive value, as they mean the startup is approaching a viable business model
(Blank and Dorf, 2012). Escalating it is the situation in which entrepreneurs believe
that they have found a sustainable business model and are willing to invest more in
the business in order to create a functioning organization around it and obtain
economies of scale (Blank and Dorf, 2012). Giving up occurs when tests and
experiments show that the business vision set is not able to generate a sustainable
business model.

3. Methodological procedures
As Webster and Watson (2002) argue, emerging topics benefit from literature reviews
aimed at identifying and exposing theoretical foundations. In order to locate contributions
in academic and practitioner-oriented literature that can be thought of antecedents to the
LS methodology, we conducted a systematic literature review using three types of sources:
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(i) articles in scientific and professional journals; (ii) entrepreneurship, business and
management books published prior or after Ries (2011); and (iii) additional relevant
references found in the bibliographies of the works surveyed in (i) and (ii), obtained by
snowball sampling (Wohlin, 2014). All analyses were carried out during the first half of
2016 and updated in early 2018. Instead of literature reviews’ usual focus on recent or
current literature, we opted for a historically oriented analysis of the source items,
aiming at producing an overview in the form of a narrative perspective of
the antecedents of the LS methodology (Grant and Booth, 2009). However, differently
from typical narrative reviews, we adopted quality assessment criteria for searching and
appraising the literature, as suggested by Tranfield et al. (2003) in their guidelines to
systematic literature reviews.
The methodological procedures were inspired by the structured approach to determine
the source material for a literature review proposed by Webster and Watson (2002). First, a
search in top scholarly journals and professional magazines dealing with strategy,
innovation, entrepreneurship, startups and management was conducted. The initial list of
sources was a ranking of the 20 most relevant publications in the category
“Entrepreneurship and Innovation” according to Google Scholar (2018), ordered by their
five-year h-index. This list was compared to and supplemented by high ranking
entrepreneurship and innovation sources identified by Thongpapanl (2012), Ratinho et al.
(2015) and Landström and Harirchi (2018). The resulting 72 publications were ordered by
journal impact factor ( JIF). Although JIF is often used as a proxy for journal propensity to
publish high impact research (Thelwall, 2008; Zhang et al., 2017), quality assessment can be
improved by combining it with other indexes (e.g. Zupic and Cater, 2015; Vogel et al., 2017).
Thus, for each of the 72 publications, five-year h-index (obtained from Scopus) and JIF
(obtained from the Thomson Reuters’ Journal of Citation Reports) were calculated in
proportion to the highest value of the index in the sample and the average of the indices for
each publication was calculated. Finally, the 12 publications with the highest overall
average were selected (Table I).
The following search string was used to search in the 12 selected publications: (startup
OR “new venture” OR “new business”) AND “business model” AND (lean OR hypothesis OR
experiment* OR test OR learn*). As we were conducting a historical review, we did not limit
our search to specific time periods.
For the second group of references, we used direct and indirect works cited by Ries
(2011), internet pages by Blank[1] and Ries[2], and participant observation within mailing
lists and virtual communities focused on entrepreneurship. During this research, a large
number of books based on or inspired by Ries (2011) were found. The third group of
references was obtained by snowball sampling (Wohlin, 2014).
 Journal h5-index JIF Average
Lean Startup
Research Policy 77 3.117 0.923736
Journal of Business Venturing 63 3.678 0.909091
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 58 3.144 0.80403
Technovation 48 2.526 0.655081
Technological Forecasting and Social Change 50 2.058 0.604447
Harvard Business Review 58 1.574 0.590598
Small Business Economics 48 1.795 0.555707
Journal of Product Innovation Management 47 1.696 0.535755
International Small Business Journal 34 1.8 0.465477
MIT Sloan Management Review 33 1.529 0.422143
California Management Review 29 1.667 0.414929 Table I.
Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal 22 2 0.414744 Selected publications
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For each reference included in our review, a first exploratory reading was carried on the title
and abstract, aiming to verify to what extent that specific work was relevant to the research.
Next, we conducted an analytical reading of selected works to decide if the main topic
explored, directly or indirectly, at least one of the activities of the LS process depicted in
Figure 2. If the article or book referenced additional works that addressed the topic at hand,
that bibliographic reference was included for further exploratory and analytical reading.
Otherwise, the work was discarded. Our extensive literature review resulted in 963
exploratory readings and 118 analytical readings, as detailed in Table II.

4. Results and discussion

These sources were analyzed according to the two questions that guided our research.

4.1 Which are the key previous scientific, academic and professional concepts and theories
that may have inspired the LS methodology?
To answer this question (RQ1), we sought similarities between concepts of LS and
concepts previously discussed by other authors found during the literature review.
Objectively, we found that the main theoretical and conceptual bases that explain and
academically justify the LS methodology are explicit on the concepts that characterize the
Lean philosophy of management (Deming, 1986; Ohno, 1988; Krafcik, 1988; Womack et al.,
1990), implicit in the implementation of principles of the Learning School of strategy
(Lindblom, 1959; Quinn, 1978; Mintzberg, 1978) and implicit on the emerging streams of
effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001) and bricolage (Baker and Nelson, 2005) concerning
entrepreneurship theory of new venture formation.
By including the word Lean in the name of his methodology, Ries (2011) seeks to bring
it closer to the works by Deming (1986), Ohno (1988) and Womack et al. (1990), specifically
on the core principles and the methods and tools of the Lean approach. The word Lean
was used for the first time by Krafcik (1988) as a generalization of the so-called Toyota
Production System (TPS). Initially, the author intended to differentiate the production

Research Exploratory reading Analytical reading

Articles in scientific or professional journals 890 70

Current reading works related to Ries (2011) 13 8 Table II.
References found in the first and second groups 60 40 Summary of the
Total 963 118 works reviewed
 MD model of companies like Toyota Motor Corporation from the western automotive
industries, known by the mass production model (Holweg, 2007). According to the Toyota
Production Support Center (2015), TPS is based on four principles: providing customers
with what they want, when they want it and in the amount they want it; people are the
most important resource; continuous improvement, with the constant engagement of
everyone; and an operational focus.
In this sense, the LS has its most explicit origins in the basics of Lean manufacturing
and TPS, notably by: seeking to reduce waste by creating minimum prototypes of
functionalities in products and seeking customer feedback to evolve (Moogk, 2012);
working with improvement cycles and continuous evolution, known as kaizen in TPS
(Eisenmann et al., 2011; Haines, 2014); and implementing an improvement process, BML,
an adaptation of the process PDCA, credited to Deming in the 1950s (Trimi and
Berbegal-Mirabent, 2012). A recent study from Ghezzi and Cavallo (2018) explicitly
compared the principles from Lean manufacturing and LSs (Table III), thus identifying the
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key touchpoints in such inherent relationship.

Moreover, and implicitly, we argue that the LS methodology and the BML method
proposed an contemporary and specialized approach to implement the principles of the
Learning School of strategy (Mintzberg et al., 1998) or adaptive approach (Miles et al.,
1978). It is contemporary because it considers the speed of the changes resulting from the
latest technological revolutions such as the internet, which is a critical factor of change
and learning. At the same time, it is specialized because its focus on helping organizations
of a specific type, the startups.
We found that the dimensions of the Learning School and the principles, practices,
techniques and methods of the LS highly overlap. Both are based on experimentation,
learning and managing projects in complex situations and great unpredictability. Table IV,
adapted from Mintzberg et al. (1998), shows the main aspects of this relationship.
Lindblom (1959) was among the first authors to propose the development of a different
kind of strategy than the formal, traditional strategic planning. By analyzing public
policy-making methods, he noticed that the essential resource used by managers in strategy
making is their own experience. The strategy therefore would be the result of a series of
individual decisions over time that would connect to a larger outcome. Quinn (1978)
developed this perspective concluding that in situations of unexpected external or internal
events managers should use what he called “logical incrementalism.” In these situations,
managers would make urgent interim decisions that would change the strategic positioning
of the company. Mintzberg (1978) observed the differences between what he called
“deliberate strategy” and “emerging strategy” used by companies. The emerging strategy,
as opposed to the deliberate strategy (also known as “classical” or “systematic”), differs by
driving the company’s strategic evolution through experimentation, learning and discovery,
in contrast to the use of formal and analytical plans (Cortimiglia et al., 2016). These theories
are commonly grouped under the Learning School umbrella (Mintzberg et al., 1998),

Lean manufacturing Lean Startup approaches

Create value for the customer Build a minimum viable product (MVP) to understand what
customers want and validate your business model
Identify the value stream Design a Lean canvas
Table III. Create flow Trigger a continuous deployment cycle
Lean manufacturing Produce only what is pulled by the customer Get out of the building (GOOB) and learn what customers ask for
principles in Lean Pursue perfection Follow a build-measure-learn (BML) cycle
Startup: touchpoints Source: Adapted from Ghezzi and Cavallo (2018)
 Adherence of the
Lean Startup
Analysis dimension Learning School Lean Startup

Target audience People inclined to experimentation and adaptability High

Desired message Learning High
Message provided Playing (instead of chasing) High
Motto “If at first you do not succeed, try again” High
Keywords Incrementalism, emerging strategy, entrepreneurship, High
adventure, core competencies
Strategy Standards, unique High
Central process Emerging, informal, descriptive, messy Moderate
Change Continuous, incremental or fragmented, with an occasional High
quantum view Table IV.
Central actor Anyone who can learn High Dimensions of the
Organization Eclectic, flexible High Learning School of
Leadership Sensitive to learning (from self and others) High strategy and their
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Environment Elaborate, unpredictable High relationship to the

Best suited to situations Complex, dynamic and unpredictable High Lean Startup
Best suited to organizations Adhocracies, decentralized High methodology

highlighting their emphasis on lifelong learning as a driver, orientation and essential

component of company strategy.
The single aspect of the LS that does not directly relate to principles of the Learning
School regards its central process. While Mintzberg et al. (1998) understand that the strategy
arising from the Learning School “emerges” from a series of initially unconnected actions,
the LS is precisely the attempt to propose a scientific, centralized and formal method for
carrying out this process.
Our literature review also allowed us to find antecedents of the LS in the
entrepreneurship theories of effectuation and, to a lesser extent, bricolage. According to
Sarasvathy (2001, p. 245), “Effectuation processes take a set of means as given and focus on
selecting between possible effects that can be created with that set of means.” As opposed to
Causation, the entrepreneurial approach which advocates the use of goal setting and
planning – the result of which are to be included in a well-structured business plan – to help
new ventures facing a risky environment which is the result of past conditions, effectuation
posits that the startup’s environment is rather uncertain than risky – since events’
probability of occurrence and related expected returns cannot be forecasted; therefore,
startups should experiment rather than plan, doing their best with the limited or
“bootstrapped” resources they have to leverage contingencies, their decisions being driven
by the notion of affordable loss rather than expected return (Sarasvathy, 2001; Frederiksen
and Brem, 2017; Yang et al., 2018).
A similar stance toward the activity of iterating and experimenting to validate a
startup’s feasibility is presented in the entrepreneurial bricolage view from Baker and
Nelson (2005). These authors revisit the traditional though fuzzy notion of bricolage from
Levi-Strauss (1966) for the entrepreneurship domain: bricolage hence is defined as “making
do by applying combinations of the resources at hand to new problems and opportunities”
(Baker and Nelson, 2005, p. 333). The LS then looks as an operational way to tackle resource
scarcity and depleted and constrained environments, by offering entrepreneurs a process to
make hypotheses that possibly challenge such environments; design and conduct
experiments with limited efforts, through a viability testing which shall be minimum – as in
the MVP; recombine their resources in different experiments according to new problems and
opportunities emerging from the validated learning; and understand how to best “make do”
notwithstanding their constraints.
 MD 4.2 How can academic and professional knowledge prior to the LS help complement the
study and understanding about this methodology?
The historical literature review also allowed us to answer our second question (RQ2). To do
so, we found clear and solid references in the academic and professional circles that propose
concepts closely related to the LS. These references can be divided into three groups: similar
or complementary methods for BMV, tools and techniques to support the implementation of
BMV; and criticism, counterpoints or limitations to the learning-oriented strategy.
The references that constitute the first group are summarized in Table V.
Block and MacMillan (1985) argue that organizational planning should be based on the
achievement of significant events, not specific dates. Such events are called milestones,
which give meaning to the name of the method: milestone planning. The achievement of a
milestone comes with validating a hypothesis about the business, reviewing the plan and
setting new milestones. The concept of milestone is not explicitly explored by Ries (2011),
but it can clearly help reinforce the BML cycle.
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Sykes and Dunham (1995) develop a practical and disciplined process for managing risks of
business development that focuses on learning called critical assumption planning, the process
maximizes learning about new markets at the lowest cost possible. The main uncertainties in the
business proposal are isolated as critical planning assumptions, which are then tested. The test
sequence is determined by the uncertainty reduction potential per dollar of test cost. Overall, the
method is similar to the LS but it includes new concepts related to financial measurement in each
stage of the cycle, which are largely absent in the typical LS implementations.
The theory developed by Mcgrath and Macmillan (1995) also differs from traditional
formal planning. Discovery-driven planning states that organizations operating in
high-uncertainty environments must implement processes of evolution in which funds are
released and invested in the company as it reaches certain goals or checkpoints. In this
scenario, it is believed that the organization can learn and evolve between a checkpoint and
another, possibly modifying its original plan in response to the continuous change that
characterizes turbulent competitive environments. It is one of the best structured and
known methods prior to the LS, and adds important concepts such as checkpoints and how
to manage the use of financial resources, which are topics not explored by Ries (2011).

Reference Method Main concept of the method and contribution to the Lean Startup

Block and Milestone planning Planning based on “milestones”

MacMillan (1985)
Sykes and Dunham Critical assumption Business uncertainty reduction through experiments prioritized
(1995) planning by the associated cost
Mcgrath and Discovery-driven Planning based on learning and release of resources based on
Macmillan (1995) planning achieving checkpoints
Lynn et al. (1996) Probe and learn Releasing “immature products” in the market in order to get
feedback from customers and reduce risk
Sarasvathy (2001) Effectuation Experimenting with a set of means given, targeting affordable
loss rather than expected return and leveraging contingencies
and feedbacks from customers
Sull (2004) Disciplined Reducing risk by making assumptions about the business and
entrepreneurship running experiments to test them
Baker and Nelson Entrepreneurial Making do with the resources at hand when tackling new
(2005) bricolage problems and opportunities
Table V. Blank (2007) Customer Product development based on the evolution of knowledge and
BMV similar or development understanding customer needs
complementary Mullins and Journey to Plan B Framework and monitoring panel to validate assumptions about
methods Komisar (2010) the business
 Lynn et al. (1996) coined the expression Probe and Learn to describe the iterative process in Lean Startup
which, through the launch of a product considered immature within controlled parameters,
the organization can study and learn more about the dynamics of the market and
subsequently launch an improved product. The idea of an “immature product” is similar to
the MVP concept described by Ries (2011) and the Probe and Learn method contributes to
LS product development cycle.
Concerning effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001) and entrepreneurial bricolage (Baker and
Nelson, 2005), as discussed in Section 4.1, the emphasis placed on experimenting with limited
resources and interacting early and often with customers to quickly understand whether the
startup’s business model is feasible and sustainable or not (Fisher, 2012), is consistent with
several claims Ries (2011) made, including: the need to experiment and test to perform BMV,
so as to disclose contingencies coming from customer feedbacks; the importance of limiting
the resources committed to such testing through the building of MVPs; and the notorious “fail
fast” statement about the opportunity to learn through unencumbered failures without
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dissipating the startup’s endowments, thus enabling further iterations on different BMs.
For the disciplined entrepreneurship (Sull, 2004) method, entrepreneurs, instead of trying
to ignore or avoid the uncertainty inherent in the business, must address it through a
disciplined approach. This approach would be to formulate hypotheses regarding many
aspects of the business and to conduct experiments aimed at testing these hypotheses,
investing few resources and seeking to reduce uncertainty. The author positively
contributes to the topics of how to properly formulate hypotheses about the business model
dimensions and how to design and run experiments to test them.
Blank (2007) coined the term customer development to explain his method. It consists of
a number of tools to increase the success of product development through better
understanding about customers. One of the main concepts of this method is to balance and
synchronize product improvement by developing the understanding of customer needs and
demands (“search phase”), before scaling up the business model (“execution phase”).
Customer development largely contributed to the birth of the LS, as Ries (2011) himself
admitted and Blank (2013) restated; more specifically, the LS largely overlaps with and
resemble customer development’s search phase, where the startup looks for BMV from
customers in order to achieve its longed-for objective of product-market fit.
Mullins and Komisar (2010), drawing from practical examples of organizations that have
been successful after iterations and changes in their initial business model, show how “Plan B”
(or C, D, E, etc.) can lead to a sustainable business model (in what they call a “Journey to Plan
B”). The authors propose a framework and a monitoring panel to help entrepreneurs validate
their hypotheses. This framework can be easily implemented along the LS methodology.
The review has also identified in the literature a number of tools or techniques that are
used explicitly or implicitly by LS adepts. Such techniques, once internalized and adapted,
can assist entrepreneurs in implementing the method and are summarized in Table VI.
Among the various contributions by Popper (1963) to the philosophy of science is the
idea of falsifiability. Popper explains that although a specific statement such as “this swan is
white” cannot be used to affirm a universal statement (such as “all swans are white”), it can
be used to show that another universal statement is false (“all the swans are black”). The
idea of falsifiability is central to the scientific method and is indispensable for an
entrepreneur formulating and testing hypotheses about business models.
Within software development research, the method described by Takeuchi and
Nonaka (1986) is of critical importance. Through the holistic approach or rugby approach,
they describe how multidisciplinary and self-organizing teams should adopt an iterative
process to develop products faster and more flexibly. Such studies have been one of the
cornerstones the Scrum, one of the leading methodologies of software development
(Vlaanderen et al., 2011) and widely referenced in LS.
 MD Deming (1986), Ohno (1988), Krafcik (1988) and Womack et al. (1990) described a series of
tools and techniques that are key to the Lean philosophy and were widely cited and used
by Ries (2011). These include the “5 Whys,” just-in-time, kanban and Genba (also named
as gemba). The same goes for another philosophy with a paramount importance in
software – and by extension, product – development: agile (Beck et al., 2001) and its methods
or tools for fast iterations, incremental deliveries, interactions with different actors including
customers and quick responses to change (e.g. see Rigby et al., 2016). As recognized in
Ghezzi and Cavallo (2018), Lean and agile are two fundamentally intertwined philosophies
backing the LS, and their related tools can support the entrepreneur in the implementation
cycle of products and serve as a blueprint for constant improvement efforts.
Eisenhardt (1989) identified the criteria that lead an organization to make decisions more
quickly, in what she called fast decision making. Among other findings, the author noticed
that the use of information in real time (as opposed to information aimed at planning for the
future, such as estimates or forecasts) is critical to make faster decisions. The whole LS
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methodology is based on agile decision making for rapid change and iteration, which is why
Eisenhardt’s contributions are of great value.
LS as a whole has not delved deep in risk analysis (Frederiksen and Brem, 2017).
Gilbert and Eyring (2010) explicitly focus on techniques for risk analysis, including a
method of selection and execution of hypotheses validation experiments based on the
estimation of associated risks. Such method can significantly contribute to the testing step
of the LS, including a tool to identify which hypothesis to test first. Also in the area of risk
analysis, Netessine (2011) proposes an appropriate balance between avoiding and taking
risks as a powerful method of innovation.
Finally, if one considers the LS as a contemporary example of incrementalism or
emerging strategy approaches to strategy making, the methodology is also at the mercy of
criticism, limitations and counterpoints previously raised by several authors in relation to
such strategy approaches. In fact, the real value of a formal and structured planning for
the success of an organization has been the subject of an intense and recent debate among
scholars (Smith 1998; Brinckmann et al., 2010; Chwolka and Raith, 2012). Smith (1998) found
evidence that small organizations using formal and traditional methods of strategic
planning will perform better than those which opt for a dynamic and evolutionary process.
Similarly, Brinckmann et al. (2010) found that a formal business plan can be of great value
both for small businesses and for new companies, with greater advantage for the former.
According to the authors, new companies should resort to formal but basic plans because of
the inherent lack of information they possess. Finally, Chwolka and Raith (2012) claim that
planning in advance can indeed be extremely relevant once some factors are favorable,
such as good quality planning, favorable nature of the project and the entrepreneur’s

Reference Tool or technique Contribution to the Lean Startup

Popper (1963) Falsifiability Formulation of hypotheses about business models

Takeuchi and Holistic approach or Product development iteratively
Nonaka (1986) rugby approach
Deming (1986), Ohno Lean and agile Tools and techniques for product development and
(1988), Krafcik (1988), continuous improvement
Womack et al. (1990),
Table VI. Beck et al. (2001)
Tools or techniques to Eisenhardt (1989) Fast decision making Making quick decisions for faster iterations
support the Gilbert and Eyring (2010) Risk analysis Selection and execution of hypotheses validation
implementation of experiments based on estimations of associated risk
BMV steps Netessine (2011) Risk analysis Balance between avoiding and taking risks
 previous experience. To cope with such criticisms, recent studies (Ghezzi and Cavallo, 2018; Lean Startup
Yang et al., 2018) point at the opportunity to integrate the LS with traditional business
planning by: running LS iterations and experiments to build metrics and figures coming
from real customer feedbacks to validate a startup’s business model; and feed the business
plan with such metrics and figures, so as to make sure the business plan revolves around a
validated business model.

5. Conclusions
Given the importance and popularity of the LS methodology, especially among
practitioners, we identified and synthetized the scientific, academic and professional
foundations that precede, support and complement the main concepts, processes and
methods advocated by the LS methodology. In addition, by contextualizing LS alongside
other strategic and entrepreneurial tools explored in recent decades, we found a set of
similar and precursory methods that can positively contribute to the implementation of the
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LS by providing new supporting processes and tools for the entrepreneur.

Our review suggests that the central principles of the LS are explicitly supported by the
principles and techniques of the Lean philosophy that first emerged in the manufacturing
context, and have high adherence with the principles and foundations of the Learning
School of strategy and the effectuation and bricolage schools in entrepreneurship.
Both the LS and the Learning School advocate that organizational learning is at the same
time a critical objective and operational tool for strategy making. This conclusion is
theoretically relevant, as it approaches the LS, a methodology with great repercussion and
popularity in practitioner circles, to the ideas, concepts and tools developed in academic
circles since 1958 by Lindblom. As such, the academic content about the subject – as well as
criticism and limitations identified – can contribute to the improvement and further
diffusion of the methodology.
Some recent studies we surveyed point at the implicit though significant nexus linking
LS with effectuation and bricolage (e.g. Frederiksen and Brem, 2017; Yang et al., 2018),
though such claims were still unsystematic and scattered in the LS-related literature, as they
are not found in other works aiming to disclose the LS antecedent: for instance, Levinthal
and Contigiani (2018) do not consider these entrepreneurship theories as a theoretical root
for the LS. Through this review, we reinforce the claim that explicitly linking effectuation
and entrepreneurial bricolage with the LS will serve as a way to close the gap between
theory and practice for business model experimenting and validation.
Previous authors that investigated LS antecedents argued that there seems to be enough
evidence to support some of the claims made by Ries and the disciples of the movement
regarding the efficacy of the methodology, but raise doubts about its widespread
applicability (Frederiksen and Brem, 2017). Our own research effort has identified a number
of iterative methods and additional concepts that can be applied within the LS methodology,
a finding that has significant practical implication in that they can help practitioners – both
from startups and incumbent companies (Power, 2014) who implement the methodology.
Thus, there is the possibility of improving the BMV process designed by Ries (2011) by
adding, for example, milestone (Block and MacMillan, 1985) or checkpoint (Mcgrath and
Macmillan, 1995) monitoring, or tools for designing immature products as defined by Lynn
et al. (1996) evolved from the customer view (Blank, 2007).
Finally, both the validity and the innovativeness of the methodology proposed by Ries
(2011) are highlighted. Even if situated into a constant evolution of concepts and tools
dating back from the 1950s, the proposed methodology was able to bring together in an
innovative and “catchy” way disparate knowledge of different areas of expertise in an
all-encompassing and coherent methodology with well-defined concepts, philosophies,
techniques and tools. In addition, he had the clarity and originality to notice that the
 MD principles of the Learning School – which, at the time it was originally proposed applied
only to very limited enterprise situations – would be perfectly applicable to a larger category
nowadays: startups, inherently unstable and risky ventures, subject to constant change.
At the same time, he more or less deliberately provided a pragmatic process to
operationalize an effectual and bricolage approach to entrepreneurship.
The resulting LS process is significantly valuable to support BMV not only concerning a
startup products, services and value proposition, but in all the constituting element of its
business model, including marketing and sales – e.g. channels, customer relationship and
pricing structure: such finding is evident in a recent study on digital entrepreneurship we
reviewed (Ghezzi and Cavallo, 2018).
Given the bibliographic nature of this research, the conclusions of this paper have
limitations in terms of research materials and practical implications. By defining a method
for selecting specialized journals for analysis and research, the quality of information
found is ensured, but full amplitude is not necessarily guaranteed. It is possible – even
probable – that additional BMV methods and support tools, disclosed in untapped sources
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and references, can be used to support the implementation of LS. In addition, all links
established between the LS and other theories, methods, tools or techniques were performed
only at the theoretical level by subjectively analyzing the adherence, similarity and
complementarity of ideas, but we did not perform any systematic empirical validation.
Consequently, as possible venues for future studies and work, we suggest expanding the
research with new and more diverse sources and carrying out practical and experimental
validation of the LS deployment associated with one or more methods, tools and techniques
identified in our research. A promising and relevant outcome of such sustained effort aimed
at framing the LS theoretically will be a better connection between strategic and
entrepreneurial theories and the startup actually practices.

Notes
1. Steve Blank’s Startup Books, available at: http://steveblank.com/books-for-startups/
2. Startup Lessons Learned, available at: www.startuplessonslearned.com

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About the authors

Rafael Fazzi Bortolini is Serial Entrepreneur in the Brazilian Market and MS Candidate at the
Department of Industrial Engineering of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). He
received BS Degree in Business Administration from the same university. His main research interests
include entrepreneurship, business model validation and strategic technology management.
Marcelo Nogueira Cortimiglia, PhD, is Professor of Technology Management and Information
Systems at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
(Brazil). His main research interests include strategic technology management and innovation
management, with a particular focus on technological and business model innovation. Professor
Cortimiglia has previously published in Technovation, Research Policy, R&D Management and
 Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Marcelo Nogueira Cortimiglia is the corresponding Lean Startup
author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Angela de Moura Ferreira Danilevicz, PhD, is Professor of Product Development at the
Department of Industrial Engineering of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil).
Her current research focuses on the convergence of sustainability, entrepreneurship and
technological innovation.
Antonio Ghezzi is Lecturer at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial
Engineering – Politecnico di Milano, Italy. His main research field is strategic management applied to
ICT industries, with a focus on the mobile market. He is author of several published works on strategic
issues related to the emergent business models, particularly in the mobile industry.
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