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By PASCAL FINETTE

The Heretic is a free dispatch delivering insights into what it takes to lead into & in the unknown. For entrepreneurs, corporate irritants and change makers. Raw, unfiltered and opinionated.

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May 3rd, 2018 Share: Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn

The Faster You Can Iterate, The Faster You Can Learn

Training the ability to quickly iterate (and test) and thus increase the speed and amount of learning, might be one of the most powerful levers of success for every entrepreneur.

By now you have heard the mantra at least a million times: Fail fast, fail forward. I will not get on my soapbox that it should not be about failing but learning (if you are inclined to listen to me on that particular soapbox, read my piece on Quartz). Iterating, and thus learning leads to compounding returns. If your initial success rate is a mere 5%, by the time you have made your way through 20 iterations, your success rate has raised to a whopping 64%!

Therefore it becomes apparent that you should train your ability to iterate fast(er) – as it has a direct impact on your bottom line. Which means that it is advisable to spend time learning the tools of the trade (things like Stanford d.school’s Design Thinking or Eric Ries’ Lean Startup and Jack Knapp’s Sprint) and making it a deliberate practice to use them. Keep asking the question: “What is the quickest and cheapest way to validate this?”

Once you get into the habit of doing lots and lots of iterations which you validate quickly, you will find that there is just no other way to do things anymore. Moreover, with your learning curve shooting upwards, so will your success.


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