What a startup really is

Ries defines a startup as an organisation trying to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. That can be a garage company or a team inside a large firm.

Under such uncertainty, detailed long-term plans are mostly guesswork. Ries draws on his own experience, including the company IMVU, where his team spent months building features that customers did not want. The real goal of a startup, he argues, is to learn what will work.