The New Way: Lean Startups for Social Change

Information technology is the key factor profoundly transforming the way companies, nonprofits, and government agencies can drive change by closing the time (and sometimes the funding) lag between planning and doing. Cell phones, GPS, the Web, social networks, and many other transformative technologies allow social and business entrepreneurs to know almost instantly whether or not their actions, the steps they are taking to change the world, are working. This speed allows social entrepreneurs to bypass Plan–Fund–Do, instead disaggregating the process of innovation into smaller, quicker steps that can eventually grow far larger than ever before.

As steeped as we are in the Internet and cell phones, it’s easy to forget all the ways in which our ability to get information has become faster and easier. For Monica’s work alone, that means that many homeless people now have cell phones, or that her organization is notified by email whenever the county issues a voucher for housing.

Overall, this change in speed underlies the practice of the lean startup. For social change work, lean startup practice is guided by three core principles and by a process called customer development.