What Entrepreneurs can learn from Science

Think back to grade 9 school. Specifically your science classes. In science we had a specific method of learning: beaker muppets

Aim / Objective

Hypothesis

Method

Materials

Results

Conclusion

(back to start)

The thing that the science community do much better than the business world is that they know that the really powerful part of the system is the actual experiment. When scientists speak we hear them talking about the experiments, not aims and methods. The experiement is the focus – not the plans and paper work. This is something the business community must take heed from. It is beyond me why the business world obsess with the aim (forecasts) and the method (business plans).  The truth is we’ll never know until the experiment is done.

As entrepreneurs it’s compounded again. We’ve got to experiment more than existing businesses with real revenue. We’ve got to do this because we have no results or conclusions which have formed a refined aim or hypothesis. So the more experiments we do, the more robust our hypothesis becomes. Until we experiment we wont really now what materials we need (which in the business world is referred to as resources). Constant planning refinement is as useless as constant refinement of an experiment method would be. Our focus instead must be repeated experimentation.

It’s only when we do this that our startup has a chance of graduating to become a bone fide business.

twitter-follow-me