The Improvisational Startup

Abstract

When undertaking to incubate a startup, many founders find adaptive “lean” planning difficult to initialize, unhelpful or simply contrary to their management style. They struggle to uncover a novel seed idea or hypothesis. Or they struggle to envision an attractive solution or profitable enterprise that might realize their mission. Planning may feel unnatural. These venture craftsmen prefer to collapse planning, design, execution and learning into a single creative act. Instead of thoughtfully iterating, they prefer to spin.Entrepreneurial improvisation upends the adaptive model of continuous planning, experimentation and learning. Hypotheses become less critical, as does the scientific method. When mastered, a founder using improvisation to incubate her startup behaves more like a jazz musician, artisan, software hacker, or even a battlefield warrior than a manager or engineer.