Jul 8, 2012

Scientists, Lean Startup and creativity

When I told a table full of biologists about Lean Startup, one asked, “doesn’t that mean you’re taking the creativity out of entrepreneurship?”

I replied, “it means we can test our hypotheses and adapt more quickly. If you could have run your PhD experiments in 3 months instead of 3 years, would you have been more or less creative?”

Same goes for your business. If you could eliminate what doesn’t work faster, think that’d make you more creative in your attempts?

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What am I up to these days?

I’m a new parent, and prioritising my attention on our new rhythms as a family. I’m also having fun with slow creative pursuits: making a few apps, writing, etc.

Work-wise, I’m trekking along at a cozy pace, with a few non-exec, advisory roles for cryptography and microchip manufacturing programs.

In the past, I've designed peer-learning programs for Oxford, UCL, Techstars, Microsoft Ventures, The Royal Academy Of Engineering, and Kernel, careering from startups to humanitech and engineering. I also played a role in starting the Lean Startup methodology, and the European startup ecosystem. You can read about this here.

Contact me

Books & collected practices

Peer Learning Is - a broad look at peer learning around the world, and how to design peer learning to outperform traditional education
Mentor Impact - researched the practices used by the startup mentors that really make a difference
DAOistry - practices and mindsets that work in blockchain communities
Decision Hacks - early-stage startup decisions distilled
Source Institute - skunkworks I founded with open peer learning formats and ops guides, and our internal guide on decentralised teams