Lean Start-Up vs. Lean AI: A Comparison
The Third Wave of Tools
In the recently released book AI-First Company by Ash Fontana (Managing Partner at Zetta, the world’s first venture capital fund focused on intelligent systems), Fontana advocates for the development of companies that are built on AI. That is, AI-First companies that engage with AI in order to gain a competitive edge by utilising limited resources to gather, process and communicate information faster than their competitors.
“Whereas earlier tools gave us physical and intellectual leverage, AI provides decision-making leverage that fulfils two important imperatives. The first applies to all of society: getting more out of our limited resources. The second applies to businesses: building a competitive advantage.”
Lean Start-Up vs. Lean AI
So how can companies go about pursuing this AI-First model?
In our previous article, we wrote about 6 Steps to Developing an MVP, which closely aligns to the lean start-up process. Fontana suggests a ‘Lean AI’ approach to building an AI-First product, which focuses on solving a specific problem with AI and building a small but complete AI that can grow into other domains or stay focused on one specific domain.
Though similar in the ‘lean’ approach, the Lean Start-Up and Lean AI development differ in their goals and process.
The Goals of Lean Start-Up vs. The Goals of Lean AI
(Source: Fontana, Ash. The AI-First Company. Portfolio | Penguin, 2021.)
Most significantly, Fontana argues that instead of building an MVP, AI-First companies ought to focus on the PUT- the prediction usability threshold. That is, producing a prediction that is usable to a target customer. Therefore, rather than product features being milestones in the development process, model features become the milestones and the output of the process is a prediction, as opposed to a calculation.
The Lean Start-Up Development Process vs. The Lean AI Development Process
(Source: Fontana, Ash. The AI-First Company. Portfolio | Penguin, 2021.)
As well as this, Fontana compares the development processes of Lean Startup vs. Lean AI. Although both start off by attempting to understanding the customer’s problem and are iterative in their approach, there are notable differences in their steps as the focus of Lean AI is producing an accurate, performant model rather than a usable product.
Summary
Thus, whilst a Lean Startup model aims to produce an MVP with minimum essential features that solves a single problem, a lean AI model aims to produce an accurate prediction by answering a single question by analysing data with a single algorithm. Unlike the MVP development process, the value proposition is not a product demo but a prediction.
Whether it’s an MVP build or lean AI development that you’re after, partner with Olive Link to bring your product idea to life. We use agile methodology to help you achieve both viability and feasibility in your proof of concept. Choose from one of our scalable packages to develop a feasible product that fits your budget and scope.