Fail Fast

The principle of testing ideas quickly and cheaply so that the ones that will not work fail early, before you have sunk much time or money into them. Failure as fast learning.

Why it matters

Failing fast conserves your scarcest resources by killing bad bets early, freeing you to find the good ones. It only works if you actually learn from each failure rather than repeating it, so the reflection matters as much as the speed.

For example

A team tests a new feature with a cheap prototype, sees no one uses it in a week, and kills it before sinking a month into building it fully.

Related terms

Lean Startup Minimum Viable Product Pivot

Go deeper

See how founders actually handle this on Founder life, part of the Starting Up hub.

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