leap of faith

is, for a startup, often hidden under arguments of analogy (i.e. It carries a similar attribute that we perceive 'often wrongly' to have enabled another technology's success) which obscure its risk.

Most leaps of faith take the form of an argument by analogy. For example, one business plan I remember argued as follows: 'Just as the development of progressive image loading allowed the widespread use of the World Wide Web over dial-up, so too our progressive rendering technology will allow our product to run on low-end personal computers.' You probably have no idea what progressive image loading or rendering is, and it doesn't much matter. But you know the argument (perhaps you've even used it): Previous technology X was used to win market Y because of attribute Z. We have a new technology X2 that will enable us to win market Y2 because we too have attribute Z. The problem with analogies like this is that they obscure the true leap of faith. That is their goal: to make the business seem less risky. They are used to persuade investors, employees, or partners to sign on. Most entrepreneurs would cringe to see their leap of faith written this way:

is, for a startup, the underlying assumptions of the business upon which the entire venture rests (i.e. People will want to use this).

Acting as if these assumptions are true is a classic entrepreneur superpower. They are called leaps of faith precisely because the success of the entire venture rests on them. If they are true, tremendous opportunity awaits. If they are false, the startup risks total failure.

is, for a startup, the set of critical assumptions to test using the scientific method.

To apply the scientific method to a startup, we need to identify which hypotheses to test. I call the riskiest elements of a startup's plan, the parts on which everything depends,leap-of-faith assumptions. The two most important assumptions are the value hypothesis and the growth hypothesis. These give rise to tuning variables that control a startup's engine of growth. Each iteration of a startup is an attempt to rev this engine to see if it will turn. Once it is running, the process repeats, shifting into higher and higher gears.

leap of faith, n.All

leap of faith