LEARN AND BUILD

Why is it so hard and time-consuming to get an idea into a valuable product or process?

Why is it so hard to get a new idea funded?

Why do you believe that every tech news you read is true?

We need PROOF!

And we need to reduce uncertainty, above all at the beginning of a tech project or even before when the project is still an idea. First we need to reduce this uncertainty into risk. Then reduce the technological risk via validation of hypotheses, via demostration of concepts, and here you had better go STEP BY STEP.

The only way to reduce risk and expenditure in high technological risk projects is fast-prototyping, dividing concepts into consecutive MVPs. Lean Start-up philosophy reminds us that a product is ready to be proven just when all the concepts are joined in a minimum viable product, but every concept or proof of concept PoC, can also be evolved into an MVP itself, without having to wait for the global MVP. At every MVP achievement, an increasing investment is at play. Investors are happy, research manager is happy.

Plan the whole thing, but proof at every step. Is that against researcher's freedom?

Every researcher would like to have a bunch of funding for a 10-year project: no questioning until a final presentation of discoveries. But truth is that big things are made not just by one researcher, but a team. PoCs and MVPs are also a way to have the team focused and motivated, and investors happy, don't forget.

So, build your ideas, take them into practice, start your masterpiece. We need some action here!

Cheers. Antonio.