I think to be a successful startup, you need to exist somewhere between 'grand visionary' and 'lean'. The startup I work for now could be described as a 'grand visionary' company. Our CEO is a very wealthy non-technical guy who is self-financing his 'vision' of what he thinks a travel website should be. The company is definitely going to fail (as do 99% of all startups), mostly because this 'vision' is extremely complicated, muddy and at times incoherent.
On the other hand, some companies are the opposite. They are some companies that are completely driven by A+B testing. They 'pivot' to a completely new idea every other week. These companies all end up doing some kind of project with the word 'analytics' somewhere in it. These projects are almost always crap, and their success is mainly tied to how aggressive their sales/marketing people were.
Being 'lean driven' is a bad idea, but abandoning all lean ideals is worse.
On the other hand, some companies are the opposite. They are some companies that are completely driven by A+B testing. They 'pivot' to a completely new idea every other week. These companies all end up doing some kind of project with the word 'analytics' somewhere in it. These projects are almost always crap, and their success is mainly tied to how aggressive their sales/marketing people were.
Being 'lean driven' is a bad idea, but abandoning all lean ideals is worse.