Eric Ries

The more pertinent questions are “Should this product be built?” and “Can we build a sustainable business around this set of products and services?”

I come across many startups that are struggling to answer the following questions: Which customer opinions should we listen to, if any? How should we prioritize across the many features we could build? Which features are essential to the product’s success and which are ancillary? What can be changed safely, and what might anger customers? What might please today’s customers at the expense of tomorrow’s? What should we work on next

begins with a clear hypothesis that makes predictions about what is supposed to happen. It then tests those predictions empirically.