Rebooting the experiment: Running Lean, AI Edition

Sixteen years ago, I started a blog to document a question: could Customer Development and Lean Startup be made to work for a bootstrapped web startup? The answers eventually became Lean Canvas and Running Lean, and most of what you’ve read from me since.

You’re reading the next round of that experiment.

Founders keep asking me whether any of the playbook still applies when AI can build a product in a weekend. Honest answer: I don’t fully know yet. Same principles, new tactics. That’s my hypothesis, not my conclusion. So I’m re-testing the core playbook one principle at a time, on a live product, and publishing what survives, what gets cheaper, and what breaks. Starting with the first question every idea faces: does it deserve to be built at all?

The first post is up. It covers how I pressure-test a product idea before building anything: the 20-minute canvas sketch, the four cross-examination questions, and why the sitting-across-from-a-customer half of validation survives AI untouched.

Reply and tell me which principle you want re-tested next. Replies pick the roadmap.

-Ash