book.chapter Cease assumptions, seek facts .

To thrive in the business world, it is crucial to follow the path that data lays out. Familiarize yourself with the fundamental elements of analytics, and you will have a method that can guide you towards success. Do not rely on mere wishes – gather concrete data and learn how to interpret it. Let's be honest: we are all prone to delusions, with entrepreneurs being the most susceptible. Entrepreneurs excel at self-deception. Deception might even be a necessary skill for success in entrepreneurship – after all, you need to persuade others to believe in something without solid evidence. You need followers willing to take a leap of faith with you. You need to lie to yourself, but not to the extent that it jeopardizes your business. That's where data comes in. The core philosophy of lean analytics is that whenever you conceive what you believe is a good idea, you should devise a method to test that idea swiftly and with minimal investment. In other words, you collect data to challenge your reality distortion field – your personal beliefs about what should work. The lean analytics approach requires you to define what success looks like beforehand and then gather data that either supports or refutes your hypothesis. By using data instead of conjecture, you base your actions on solid facts rather than on your hopes and beliefs. When it comes to tracking data, you must be careful to avoid tracking vanity metrics like the number of hits to your website, time on site, and so on. Instead, you should track real metrics – which are defined as metrics that are actionable and that lead you to act differently in the future. Ensure you use metrics that will inform you and guide you as you strive to enhance your business model in the future. Real metrics are typically comparative, measured over multiple time periods, understandable and applicable to what you do, expressed as a ratio or a rate, and clear enough to change the way you act in the future. In deciding what metrics make sense for you to use, one good approach is to consolidate everything in a one-page visual business plan. By doing this, you have a framework that will help you identify the areas of greatest potential risk and evaluate whether or not you have a viable business opportunity to pursue. By consolidating everything in something like a one-page visual business plan, you can focus on the three key questions that you always need to ask when launching any new business venture: Have I identified a problem worth solving? Is my proposed solution the right one and is it better than what's already there? Do I actually want to solve this problem? That is, will I make enough money for the business to be sustainable and enjoyable? The whole point of lean analytics is to be data-driven rather than merely data-informed. You do not want to gather so much information that you fall victim to analysis paralysis, but you use solid data to succeed in building a sustainable long-term operation. "We sometimes remind early-stage founders that, in many ways, they aren’t building a product. They’re building a tool to learn what product to build. This helps separate the task at hand — finding a sustainable business model — from the screens, lines of code, and mailing lists they’ve carefully built along the way. Lean Startup is focused on learning above everything else, and encourages broad thinking, exploration, and experimentation. It’s not about mindlessly going through the motions of build > measure > learn — it’s about really understanding what’s going on and being open to new possibilities." – Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz “Markets that don’t exist don’t care how smart you are.” – Marc Andreesen "Lean, analytical thinking is about asking the right questions, and focusing on the one key metric that will produce the change you’re after." – Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz