What is Lean Testing?

Lean Testing is a customer development methodology popularized by Ash Maurya for rapidly validating product ideas and assumptions. The key principles of Lean Testing include:

• Getting out of the building to test ideas directly with real customers
• Designing minimal viable tests that take days, not months
• Iterating quickly based on customer feedback to find product/market fit
• Focusing on problems, solutions, key metrics, and testing channel fit
• Using an accelerated method versus traditional market research

The goal of Lean Testing is not to produce finely polished products. Rather, it aims to determine if the products solve real customer problems before investing more time and money in development. This is done through continuous experiments and measurements with target customers in the market.

Lean Testing typically follows a process of first identifying key assumptions, then designing low-fidelity MVP experiments, gathering customer data, and reviewing results to determine if pivot or proceed decisions are needed. This rapid validate-or-invalidate loop replaces extended planning and theorizing.

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