# Lean Startup

Design MVPs, validated learning experiments, and pivot-or-persevere decisions using...

- Repository: https://github.com/wondelai/skills (2552 stars)
- Category: Design
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-09-10
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add wondelai/skills --skill lean-startup -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add wondelai/skills --skill lean-startup -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add wondelai/skills --skill lean-startup -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add wondelai/skills --skill lean-startup -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add wondelai/skills`

## Description

Design MVPs, validated learning experiments, and pivot-or-persevere decisions using Build-Measure-Learn. Use when the user mentions "MVP scope", "validated learning", "pivot or persevere", "vanity metrics", "test assumptions", "innovation accounting", "build-measure-learn", "minimum viable experiment", "should we pivot", "test a business idea cheaply", or "build the smallest version first". Also trigger when deciding what to include in a first version, measuring startup progress, or evaluating whether to change direction on a product bet. Covers innovation accounting and actionable metrics. For 5-day prototype testing, see design-sprint. For customer motivation analysis, see jobs-to-be-done.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Lean Startup Methodology

A systematic approach to building startups and launching new products that shortens development cycles and rapidly discovers whether a business model is viable.

## Core Principle

**Entrepreneurship is a form of management.** Success doesn't require a perfect plan or brilliant insight, it requires a systematic process for testing assumptions, learning from customers, and iterating rapidly. Most startups fail not because they couldn't build what they planned, but because they built the wrong thing: treat every plan as a set of hypotheses to falsify, and spend effort to eliminate waste and accelerate **validated learning**, not to execute a fixed roadmap.

## Scoring

**Goal: 10/10.** Score a plan, experiment, or metric set by the five Quick Diagnostic rows, **1 point each** when the answer is yes, **2 points** when it is also backed by evidence on the Validation Ladder (Level 3+):

- **9-10:** every leap-of-faith assumption named and ranked by risk, the riskiest tested by a real MVP, actionable metrics defined, and explicit pivot criteria set before building.
- **5-6:** a hypothesis and some MVP exist, but metrics are vanity or pivot criteria are undefined, decisions can't be made from the data.
- **≤3:** waterfall thinking, building the full product first, asking customers what they want, or scaling before product/market fit.

State the current score and the lowest-scoring diagnostic row to fix next.

## The Build-Measure-Learn Loop

The fundamental cycle: **IDEAS → BUILD (product) → MEASURE (data) → LEARN (knowledge) → back to IDEAS.**

**Critical insight:** Plan the loop backward:
1. **What do we want to learn?** (hypothesis to test)
2. **How will we know if we learned it?** (metrics)
3. **What's the minimum we can build?** (MVP)

**Goal:** Minimize total time through the loop.

The rest: https://github.com/wondelai/skills/blob/HEAD/lean-startup/SKILL.md