Eric Ries  asserts that, at a deeper level, a startup is designed to create something new under extreme uncertainty, and that what matters most for entrepreneurship is the context in which this creativity operates. This requires taking entrepreneurship management more seriously. The management of people who build entrepreneurial technology increases the speed at which one can develop new products and prototypes: This could be the best time ever to be an entrepreneur. 

Pivot is the ability to change direction in response to failure. Within every failure is a good idea waiting for the right circumstance or application. Pivot is an incremental and "zig-zagging path" towards the right market fit. The faster the pivot, the more likely a startup will find success before running out of money.

Ries contends that startups must be "built to learn", meaning validated learning about what customers want has to be the unit of measurement for company success. Turning ideas into products, and testing those ideas against reality, allows the company to pivot effectively, enabling customer-centered testing to be done by the dozen, or even, by the hundred.