"we have no real way of knowing what's viable until we actually give it a shot"

""It's not what you don't know that kills you," Mark Twain famously said, "it's what you know for sure that ain't true" and that's the real innovator's dilemma. Innovation, necessarily, is about the future, but all we can really know is about the past and some of the present. Innovation is always a balancing act of staying true to your vision and re-examining your assumptions.
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Innovation is always about the future and the future, especially with regard to technology, is often uncertain.
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Lean startup guru Steve Blank likes to say that "no business plan survives first contact with a customer." It's one of those quotes that's constantly repeated because it's so obviously true to anyone who has ever launched a product. We can analyze surveys till we're blue in the face, but we really don't know what will happen until we see something hit the market.
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If you went to an investor and said you wanted to start a business but did not have any idea about the technology, the customer or the competitive environment, you probably wouldn't get very far. Nevertheless, that's exactly how every business starts. You have some assumptions, many of which will be proven wrong and you will have to adapt. [Moi ici: Por causa disto é que considero de uma imprudência alarmante isto e isto]
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Unfortunately, an idea can never be validated backwards, only forwards, so we have no real way of knowing what's viable until we actually give it a shot. That's why the ones that succeed learn how to test new ideas, see what happens and learn until they find something that really works. Innovation is never about what you know, but what you don't."

Trechos retirados de "Innovation Isn't About What You Know, But What You Don't"