Hello friends,

Welcome back to Theory of Change. We’re at episode three of the Anti-Pattern Editions - a 12-part series dismantling overhyped business frameworks and reconstructing them for complex, purpose-led work.

This week: Lean Startup. The go-to playbook for rapid piloting, circular logic disguised as strategy, and unearned confidence.

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Let's get into it.

🎢 LEAN STARTUP🎢

What it’s supposed to be

Lean Startup, made famous by Eric Ries, was once a radical departure from bloated business plans and waterfall project management. Its promise was elegant: launch early, learn fast, and avoid wasting time on things no one wants.

The mantra? Build – Measure – Learn.

Start with a hypothesis, create a minimum viable product (MVP), put it in front of users, and adapt based on what you observe.

In product development, especially in tech, this loop works well. It’s tidy, testable, and speaks fluent investor. So naturally, it’s become a default strategy in public sector pilots, philanthropic innovation labs, and nonprofit programmes trying to sound fundable.

Where it falls apart

Lean Startup assumes you’re in control of the product, the process, and the market. Most purpose-led work lives in a different reality, one where power is uneven, impact is contested, and trust is built over years, not clicks.

Let’s break it down:

1. Lean reduces people to users. Real-world change isn’t about optimising for conversions. It’s about engaging with humans who have history, agency, and their own strategies for survival. The MVP mindset can easily slip into extractive testing.

2. It treats harm as a rounding error. “Fail fast” is easy to say when failure means a 2% drop in engagement. It’s a lot harder when it means retraumatising a community or undermining frontline workers’ credibility.

3. It overvalues control and speed. Lean Startup imagines a clean loop. But real systems are noisy, political, and non-linear. Have you tried launching a nonprofit membership programme? You can’t always pivot your way out of donor ambivalence, internal contradictions, or the existential dread of a £5/month ask.

4. It confuses measurement with learning. Clicks aren’t always insight. Uptake isn’t trust. Metrics can signal interest, but they often miss context.

A better way to think about it

Lean Startup is a tool. And like all tools, it’s shaped by the hands that wield it. In my work, I’ve found I need not faster feedback loops, but more relational ones. Less “build-measure-learn,” more “listen-try-reflect.”

Start from entangled context, not isolated insight, then test in ways that deepen relationships, not just generate feedback. Learn in public, with others, knowing the problem will keep shifting.

If you want to dive into how to do this, try these past editions of Theory of Change.

• GESET reminds us that goals, emotions, and systems are inseparable - there is no neutral starting point.

• Emergent Strategy teaches that trust and alignment grow through shared rhythm, not extractive iteration.

• Wicked Problems thinking resists tidy conclusions - what matters is how we stay adaptive and accountable together.

Try it this week

If you’re too busy to test a prototype, here’s what you can do instead:

1. The 10-minute test: “If we stopped doing this for six months, who would notice (and how?)” I often ask this to surface what’s performative, what’s essential, and where the real value lies.

2. Frustration audit: Ask two trusted team members: “Where are we spending effort without movement?” Don’t try to solve it yet, just listen. The patterns will speak for themselves.

3. Resignation letter exercise: Ask, “if I left tomorrow, what would I most regret not resolving - and why?” I find this often reveals the invisible priorities beneath the strategy decks.

4. Phone-a-peer call: Ask someone in another organisation: “What have you changed your mind about in the past year?” Surprisingly effective!
   

🌊 WAVE GOODBYE 🌊

Lean Startup taught us to be efficient. These days, I know how to do that. I’m pretty good at it, as it happens. But what I need most is to be more attentive. Since stepping back from social media, I’m finding I have a lot more attention to work with than I expected and it’s showing up in better ideas, new songs, and actual writing. I’m spending more time outside. And I think my family would tell you that I’m more present. I’m not sure if they actually want that, but it’s happening nonetheless!

Here’s the stack of things I’m working on right now, should you wish to explore the Adamverse:

• I’m considering more regular updates over at my personal newsletter, Infinite Content. Feel free to sign up for photography, notes, and videos on a wide range of things than I cover here.

• My YouTube channel. Every fortnight, I share a short, reflective video essay on life as a quietly ambitious multipotentialite (i.e. someone who finds it hard to choose just one thing to be interested in). New video next week!

• I currently have advisory roles with Report For The World and V-Ventures.

• My music project. RIYL: Brian Eno, William Basinski, The Caretaker.

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See you next week,

Adam